Apartment 86
by Susan Hilton
Summary: Sam Beckett Leaps into Maxwell Smart, and finds the antidote to the slow poison instead of Dr. Steel in this retake of an original series episode that has needed some help for many years. Please review.
1. Chapter 1

Apartment 86, Chapter One, by Jeri

I, Samuel Beckett, have had many strange experiences when traveling in time, but this was one of the strangest. I had figured out almost immediately that I was once again in the nineteen sixties. I found myself facing an old-fashioned phone booth. I looked down at myself and found that I was wearing a tan trench coat, a blue suit with a thin red and blue tie, which matched my suit perfectly, and was holding a dime in my right hand. I was in a large building, apparently on a lower level. I heard a pair of heavy striped blue and black doors close behind me with a clank. Al appeared much sooner than usual, wearing a grin and a tuxedo with very thin lapels and a bow tie. It was not his usual flamboyant style. He looked around with wonder and apparent amusement.

"Sam, do you have any idea where you are?"

"Don't tell me I leaped into Maxwell Smart." I ventured, looking him over and hoping in vain I was wrong.

"You leaped into Maxwell Smart." He said seriously, to my astonishment.

"I asked you not to tell me that." I said with a wince.

Al chortled. "Thanks, Sam. I love that classic one-liner." He looked around again. "It's been a long time since I have seen a phone booth like this one. Our man Max is in the waiting room. He thinks we're KAOS agents. Isn't this a scream?"

"In more ways than one. How could I have leaped into a fictional character?"

"Beats me, Sam, but stranger things have happened. Step into the phone booth."

"What for?"

"So you can go down to Control headquarters."

"You have got to be kidding!" He gave me a wounded look. "All right, you big kid. I'll play along. What number should I dial?"

"Zero eight six, of course."

"Great. Ask a silly question, get an even sillier answer." I sighed, dropped the dime in the appropriate slot, and dialed the rotary dial. I had also forgotten how cheap phone calls were in the sixties. Instantly, the floor dropped. It was a really fast elevator disguised as a phone booth. I let out a startled "Oh booooy!" and dropped about eighty feet. _Not too good for weak ankles or people with bad hearts, _I thought. I then thought of something else. There was another program in the sixties that I really loved for a long time. It had an episode with a fast elevator. I knew that Leonard Nimoy had a brief appearance as a villain in Get Smart's first season, right before he donned his famous pointed ears. I wondered if he suggested to Gene Roddenberry that he should borrow the fast elevator from this show.

"Well, hello, Max." The chief of Control greeted, offering a hand up off my butt. I accepted gratefully. "Did you have a nice trip down? I thought you would be used to that by now."

"I've had better trips. I will never get used to that, even if it takes me forty years."

The old man grinned. "I didn't know you tried LSD. That would explain a lot."

I peered at him with a puzzled expression, not knowing what he meant. Al chuckled, getting the joke before I did. The elder gentleman was quite distinguished-looking. He had an uncanny resemblance to Edward Platt, the original chief of Control. He was an older gentleman, with a receding gray hairline. He was wearing a gray suit with a black striped tie, thin like mine. He looked like he was in charge around here, so I came to the conclusion that he was who he looked like. I suddenly thought that sounded crazy, so I quickly looked around for cameras or a set, and listened for a voice to yell "cut", but none of that happened. This, whatever it was, was no TV studio. I had always thought that putting the Chief's office right at the bottom of the phone booth drop was a security risk. Al said he was glad they fixed that in the new movie.

"You look a little more befuddled than usual, Max. Are you all right?"

"Fine…I think." I said, finally detecting his slight intentional insults.

"Good. How did your mission with the female KAOS agent go?"

What? A mission with a KAOS agent? I didn't have a clue on how to respond. The chief continued. "As a precautionary measure, we had your apartment temporarily bugged. I think she slipped you a deadly cocktail."

_She must have, _I thought. "I think so, uh, boss. I feel strange."

"Boss, hah? Since when have you ever called me boss?"

"Uh…sorry about that, Chief." As soon as I uttered those words, I winced again, expecting canned audience laughter. There was none.

"No harm done. You have obviously been poisoned, Max. Sit down. You look like you hurt yourself from the fall."

"My back is a bit sore." I responded honestly, thankfully sinking into a very thick luxurious office chair with dark green upholstery. Another crazy thought raced through my mind. Had I leaped into an original Get Smart episode? As a kid, I had not watched Get Smart very much, but this was starting to look familiar. If it was the original episode I thought it was, then I sincerely hoped that I would find the antidote for the poisoned pill before the deadline the following day. I also fervently hoped that the next day would not occur in the space of a half an hour. It was then I remembered that I was a medical doctor.

I could help keep Max alive. Maybe that was why I was here.

"I'm sending you home, Max. You don't look well. I'll set up an emergency appointment for you with our best toxicologist. I'll have 99 come over and check up on you."

For a moment, I panicked, not knowing where "home" to Maxwell Smart was. The only things I knew were that he lived in Washington, DC, six blocks from the State Department. I had no clue as to where exactly he lived. I had never been to this city in my life.

"You look a little dazed, Max. Do you need a ride home?"

I quickly nodded yes, relieved that I didn't have to find Max's apartment all by myself.

The chief went to his desk, seeing a button light up from an apparatus there. Quickly, there was the sound of someone saying, "Oomph!", followed by a loud thud. Whoever it was, he landed on his butt too.

"Hello, Chief." The other man greeted. "I came to tell you that the doors upstairs are working backwards again, and door number four is still slow to close." I figured that the door he was talking about was the one that Control agents first went through on their way to the fake phone booth, and the last one to close when they leave. Door number one or door number four? I supposed it was all in someone's point of view. He had gotten up without any assistance and nodded a hello to me.

The chief looked up at the ceiling. "That's just great, Agent 44! I thought I had those repaired."

"They worked fine for me, Chief." I guessed. "It must be a glitch with the security system that controls them." I peered at the newcomer. He looked very familiar, but I couldn't recall where I saw his face before.

"Maybe you're right, Max. Agent 44, do you know how to drive Max's booby-trapped vehicle without blowing yourself up?"

I recalled some of the gadgets on his little red Tiger convertible, and they were pretty amazing for the time. James Bond would have been jealous of some of them, or, at the very least, he would have been amused. I wondered just what Max had installed in his little blue Ghia.


	2. Chapter 2

Apartment 86, Chapter Two: Sam Meets 99

We arrived at Max's apartment building safely. The chief said he would call me on Max's shoe phone when he had set up the appointment with the good lady doctor. I often wondered through the years how such a multitalented and brilliant scientist like her would be so undervalued by Max. I figured that he got away with it because this was a different era. Al had filled me in about the old episode I had the misfortune of leaping into. He said he was looking forward to meeting the "real" Miss Steel. When I was a kid, I thought that this show was silly and illogical. I hadn't watched much TV, preferring my academics over hilarity. This particular one was probably the only one I had watched with more than a passing interest. Al said he felt sorry for me, missing out on this classic comedy. We stepped into the brilliant sunshine of what felt like a summer day and I was fascinated by all the old cars that looked brand new that were parked there and going past us. Al said that the weather was very strange, considering this episode aired in December of 1967. One car in particular caught my attention. It was parked right behind Max's blue convertible. It was a beautiful 1965 Dodge Dart, white with red interior. It would have been considered quite ordinary back in this era, but it was an interesting contrast to Max's cute little racing car. If these cars could be found in the twenty-first century, they would now be worth a fortune. Al wondered how someone could part with a red Tiger convertible and another blue one like Max's to make the new Get Smart movie in 2008. They must have spent quite a lot for the scene in which the new "Max" crashed through the museum doors in the aforementioned red Tiger that was used exclusively in the first two seasons. Both Agent 44 and Al asked if I was all right. I nodded in the affirmative, thanked 44 for the ride home, and stepped out of the vehicle. He called for a cab on his wrist communicator, commenting I should get one of those. He thought shoe phones were silly. I had to agree, but deep down inside, I kind of thought they were a cute idea, as long as they don't ring in the middle of a concert. Max's apartment was in a large brown stone structure in the heart of a residential area. A sudden wave of inexplicable dizziness struck me momentarily. I held onto the closed car door until it passed. I suddenly wondered to myself how a secret agent would take such a chance with a convertible, knowing the host of weekly villains who had made attempts on Max's life. Al looked very concerned about my deteriorating condition, but only said that my apartment number was 86. I didn't think that was very funny, but Al found it hilarious.

I had Max's car keys in my hand. The key to his apartment must be in the trench coat I was still wearing. It was. Al told me to be careful when we entered and to not touch anything. Max's apartment had quite a few booby traps, some of which could be lethal. The one thing I did remember about his place was the invisible shield that warded off attackers from the bad guys. I bopped into it, hard, and lost consciousness.

"I'm worried about you, Sam. The poison shouldn't be affecting you so soon. Lean on the desk near the door to raise the shield. Max just told me that. He's now convinced we aren't from KAOS and are here to help. He said he was sorry that he forgot to put it back up when he left for Control this morning."

"I'm glad he doesn't see us as the enemy, Al." I said, getting up and doing as I was instructed. A peculiar whirring sound was heard, then silence. I tottered to Max's luxuriant tan sectional couch and sat down. I remembered that I had liked the blue one better. I always thought that this tan color made it look dull and worn out. Al guessed that it might have been Max's favorite color, given the number of times he asked to see things in "a tan".

Al fiddled with his hand-held link for a moment. "According to Ziggy, we have about twenty-three hours of real time left, minus, of course, the consultation with the lovely and talented Control doctor. I wouldn't count on that shoe phone ringing after that. In the episode, they had already disconnected it when they declared Max dead."

"Wonderful." I muttered. "So what did Max do in all this time?"

"He went to twenty-one doctors to determine if he really was going to kick the bucket."

"Al, that's insane!" I interjected loudly. "This guy is a real moron! He wasted valuable time going to all those doctors, which probably cost Control a fortune even in the sixties, then balked at a mere forty-eight dollar doctor bill from the brilliant woman who saved his life!"

"It looks like you do remember the episode. Sam, forty-eight dollars was considered a lot of money back in this era. Cut the poor guy some slack. I must also remind you that this show was a comedy. Max just admitted to me that he's not the greatest money manager, given what he makes in a year." Al finished with a smile.

"Yes, I kind of do remember it. That was one of the reasons I didn't watch this show much." Another thought occurred to me as I looked around for the candy cigarettes and the peppermint matches, left behind by the woman named Janet who poisoned him. I felt that if Don Adams had lain off the cancer sticks, there was a small possibility that he would be still alive in our time. However, in this episode, the cigarettes indirectly saved Max's life. I can remember buying candy cigarettes when I was a kid. They were fun to play with, but they did not in any way lead me to start the habit. I was glad I was here to give his lungs a break.

Neither Al nor I heard the door open, but Al saw her first. Agent 99, who was way too early for this episode, according to Al, stood in the threshold, looking a little bewildered. She never knew that Max had an imaginary friend.

"Max, who are you talking to?"

I turned to face her. She looked amazingly like Barbara Feldon. I thought I should tell her who I really was. I, for one, was no secret agent.

"I'm not Max, my dear."

"Sam…" Al said with a warning in his voice. We watched as she deftly opened her little light violet purse and whipped out her compact little red firearm. Al always thought that her gun looked more like a toy than a weapon, but, in this case, he wasn't sure.

"Who are you?" She asked, aiming her pistol at me. "Are you from the League of Imposters? If you killed Max, I will drop you where you stand." Her face was deadly serious, but her expression was also one of apprehension. "You are either a raving lunatic or a KAOS double. Which is it?"

"Neither, Miss 99." I replied, raising my hands in surrender. "Think about it for a moment. If I were from the League of Imposters, would I tell you that I wasn't Max? I'm also unarmed."

"No, you aren't!" Both Al and 99 said in unison. Al smiled at her as she stepped closer to me, her gun still poised. I let her frisk me and remove Max's hand gun from its holster from under his blue blazer. She threw it across the room.

"I guess you have a point there. OK, buster, if you aren't from KAOS and not Max, then who are you?"

"My name is Sam Beckett. I'm a time traveler here to help your Max."

"Time travel is impossible. It's the stuff of science fiction. How did you get into Max's apartment, you nut case?"

"I used his key. 99, I'm not here to hurt you. Please believe me. Time travel is impossible for you, not for me."

"I'm not the idiot you take Max for. He might not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but he's my tool. I love him." She still had her gun on me.

"I know you do. He's a great guy. I swear that he's safe and will return. I'm here to save his life. Please believe me when I say I'm a time traveler from the next century. My invisible and inaudible to you friend is named Al Calavicci. He assists me in my leaps in time. I have been here ever since I leaped into Max near the fake phone booth at Control headquarters."

She tentatively lowered her weapon, looking into the face of the man she loved for more than five years. She considered that he might be telling the truth. It was a pretty wild story, but why would someone make that up? After all, he did let her frisk him. Max had never lied to her, outside of her job, and this man seemed very worried that she was going to pull the trigger.

"If you shoot me, you will be shooting Max." I continued. "Either way, he will be dead. I want to keep him alive."

She slowly put the gun back in her purse. She still thought it was a crazy story, and she didn't really understand what he was saying, but she now couldn't bear the thought of harming someone who resembled her sweetheart.

"All right, Mr…Beckett, is it?" I nodded yes, put my arms at my sides, and both Al and I let out sighs of relief. Al was smiling again with amusement at 99 for calling Max a tool. We both realized that word usage had changed quite a bit in over forty years. "If you are here from the future, why would someone be interested in helping a relatively unknown secret agent from the past?"

"He's not unknown in our time, 99. For many people over forty, you and Max are special parts of their childhoods. Where I come from, your life is a treasured television comedy."

She still wasn't sure she believed this man, but she smiled tenuously. "Art imitating life?"

I smiled back and nodded. "Something like that. Now, will you help me operate Max's shoe phone when the chief calls?"


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

As a trained and very capable Control agent, 99 was still reticent about leaving this man who looked just like Max alone to his own devices. He might still be a KAOS double. For the moment, the self-proclaimed time traveler seemed harmless enough, but that could change. She was still very wary and kept her hand near her little purse, ready at a moment's notice to withdraw her gun again if things got ugly. He seemed to be honest about not knowing how to operate the shoe phone, which she thought was a bit odd. It was Max's favorite gadget. She saw little harm in showing him how to use it, though. If he was a KAOS man, the worst thing that could happen would be if he tried anything with her or if he tried to steal the technology. She was an expert at self defense, and KAOS probably had better things to do, like building mechanical men like Hymie or Gropo, than stealing an already existing technology. The way his eyes widened with boyish fascination told her that he was probably who he said he was, a time traveler from a different reality, where everything and everyone she knew was part of a comedic television show. She wondered why he was so taken by a simple rotary dial.

I told her that in the time I was from, rotary dials had nearly all been replaced with push buttons. I also told her that my invisible buddy Al had said that it had been many years since he last saw a phone with one. The reason I was so fascinated was that I always thought the shoe phone was a goofy sight gag and a prop like the cone of silence, not an actual working telephone. I briefly wondered why Control women didn't have a similar device issued to them. Maybe the producers of the show thought that that would be too silly, which was a ridiculous thought in itself.

As Al and I watched, 99 opened the shoe phone with practiced dexterity. "When the chief calls, push on this button to talk like this." As she pushed on the button, a noxious gas suddenly emanated from the speaker. She collapsed into my lap with an "Oh, Max!" I was too far from the speaker for whatever it was to affect me. Al and I exchanged startled and concerned looks.

"I'll be back in a bit, Sam." Al said. "I just hope we didn't hurt her."

"Me too, Al." I responded, still trying to revive her. "It looks like Max could use some Odor Eaters." I knew they hadn't been invented yet. I was just trying to lighten the moment.

Al shook his head, trying hard not to snicker, and left as quickly as he could. He returned a few minutes later and found that I had laid 99 on one end of the couch and had found a blanket in the upstairs linen closet, after dodging a feathered spear, which was still stuck on the steps. We found out that it was just knockout gas that Max had recently installed, to deter unauthorized use of his device. He asked us politely to write 99 a note of apology. She was going to be out for the next couple of hours at least. That stuff was pretty potent. I agreed to write the note and put it on the coffee table. Now what was I going to do? Al reminded me about the tutti frutti cigarettes and the peppermint matches, and I put them next to the note. I also retrieved Max's gun, which had fallen behind the bar, under the light fixture that doubled as a club. Of course, 99 wasn't awake to find out which button she should have pushed. Al asked Max about it. He told them to push the one on the inside edge of the heel. He also told them he got the idea to do it from the last secret spy convention he attended in northern Minnesota, of all places, in a very remote location on a road called the Ash River Trail, near a place called the AshKaNam resort. Al said that Ziggy had done some research and found that there really was an Ash River Trail, near Voyager's National Park, and an old-fashioned phone booth located there in the twenty-first century. It now looked very out of place, and was getting more and more conspicuous. Al said he now knew why Minnesota was mentioned in the original series, although he doubted that Max came from there. He had more of a New York accent than a Midwestern one. I could just imagine someone watching secret agents disappear one by one into that old phone booth, hopefully dressed as tourists or fisher people. It was an amusing thought.

The chief called soon after that, and then arrived in his sleek white Ford Mustang with the zebra stripes on the sides to pick me up. _Talk about conspicuous! _I thought. The term sleek was an understatement. Even in our time, it would be a sight to behold. We drove to a dance hall next to Control headquarters. I knew it was a cover for the good lady doctor, but decided to play it straight.

"What are we doing here, Chief? Shouldn't we be going to a doctor's office?"

"We created this dance hall to give Dr. Steel her cover, Max."

"Dr. Steel?"

"Yes. She's Control's leading toxicologist."

"I bet she's also known as the dancing doctor." I knew that was for another fictional doctor character, twenty years in the future, but I couldn't resist. For all I knew, Dr. Steel just might have been the inspiration for Dr. Crusher.

The chief sighed and shrugged. "Come on, Max." He went to a nearby large vertical trunk and opened it. The lid creaked like some old door from a horror movie. "After you." He said, waving me in. I stepped inside and found it led backstage to her secret lab.

"I've heard of walk-in closets, but this is ridiculous." I said, trying to remember the old lines for this scene.

"Close, but no cigar, Sam." Al said with a smirk, actually watching the old episode on his hand link. He appeared to be enjoying it. Good for him.

"We had this constructed to conceal her lab from KAOS, Max. Sit down."

The doctor who danced on the side arrived a few minutes later, put on her lab dress over her brown form-fitting costume, and took a blood sample, after I removed Max's trench coat and rolled up his sleeve. I remembered the homing device attached to the bottom part of his right lapel of his coat, but decided to be true to what was left of the continuity of the episode. In the original account, Max had forgotten his coat, making it hard for the chief to find him. I thought I might come to regret that decision, but I would cross that bridge if I came to it.

"I would have been here sooner, but they keep me busy dancing here." She said pleasantly.

"Wow, she's a hottie!" I said softly, with a lecherous twinkle in my eye. Al grinned like a Cheshire cat and agreed wholeheartedly. I had a little bit of Max's libido in my Swiss-cheesed brain. The chief scowled at me. I sort of remembered the next line, and looked back at him. "Well, I'm not dead yet, sir."

Dr. Steel blushed, but she got right down to business, putting the blood sample under the microscope. She adjusted her little round-rimmed glasses, which had been on the table beside it, and peered into the lenses. She was a combination of brains and beauty, a brunette like 99. Her hair was done up in a neat little bun and pony tail, with a cute little black bow on the top of her head. She wore another bow around her slender neck, in the form of a black tie.

"You are Mr. Smart?" She asked me while she examined the slide. The chief wondered why he had forgotten to introduce me.

"Yes, ma'am, I am." I answered, thinking that this was turning out to be quite different from the episode. I decided to play it by ear from now on, since I couldn't remember the rest of the lines. Al was scratching his head, trying to figure out why this scene was so different. I didn't care. "I sure hope you can find the antidote, Doctor. I don't have a lot of time." I suddenly had an idea on how to help her find the antidote sooner. "My, uh, identical twin brother will be flying in from Minnesota. He's a doctor too. Would you like some help?"

"Yes, that would be fine. I can always use some help." She replied, still examining the slide. "Is he a good doctor?"

"He's probably equal to you, Miss Steel." I answered carefully, not wanting to offend. I knew that medicine in the sixties was a little more primitive than it was in my time. She really could use the help.

"Max, may I speak with you in private for a moment?" The chief asked with a puzzled expression. "Excuse us, Dr. Steel." She waved her hand in acknowledgement, and the chief and I moved to the other side of the room. I knew what his question was going to be before he asked it. Max had no twin brother. "86, what are you trying to do? I didn't know you had a twin brother."

I thought quickly. "Well, you see, Chief, he's kind of a black sheep in our family. We don't talk about him much. He was pretty wild in his younger years and got in trouble with the law. Our parents disowned him. He and I have kept in touch as much as we could and he agreed to help me find the cure."

"I see. What's his name?"

"Samuel."

"Samuel Smart. Hm, that has a nice ring to it. Will I get to meet him?"

_I hope not, _I thought, but I didn't say that. "Maybe sir, if he's not too busy helping Dr. Steel find the antidote. Also, like my other relatives, he has no idea that I'm a secret agent." It was a wonder that memory surfaced. I did recall it from the first season.

The chief considered that for a moment. "Then, I shouldn't meet him, Max. I don't want to blow your cover."

I nodded in agreement. Now I had to find a way to leave gracefully, find a fake mustache or something, and pretend to be Max's non-existent twin brother. The chief supplied the excuse. "Max, I will drop you off at your apartment so you can wait for your brother. There's no use us staying here and getting in the doctor's way."

"Thank you, Chief. Maybe we should move Dr. Steel's lab to a more conventional location, temporarily, for my brother."

"Good idea, Max. I will arrange that. I will let you know where via your shoe phone." The chief wondered why Max was suddenly so lucid. He also wondered out loud why Max hadn't touched a cigarette since he picked him up. He figured it must be the stress of knowing I might have just hours to live. I found that the chief was studying my face.

"Those things will kill you, Chief." I half- joked.

"I found out what kind of poison Mr. Smart ingested, Chief." Dr. Steel announced. "I had tinkered with the formula that KAOS came up with weeks ago." She held up a small vial. "This is the poison I have duplicated. Mine is lethal in thirty seconds. I still haven't figured out how their delaying process works. It will be some time until I can find the antidote." Dr. Steel was a lot more serious than I remembered, but it was a nice change from the goofy old lines they gave to her in the show.

"How long?" Asked the chief.

"It might be as long as six months."

"Six _months_?!" The chief and I responded in horror.

"That's my estimate, but I will really make an effort to find the antidote sooner. I know that 86 only has until one o'clock tomorrow." She paused thoughtfully. "Maybe two. I just hope your twin can help, Mr. Smart."

"I do too, Doctor." I said, trying to look terrified and doing a great job.

She got up from her work station and handed the chief a piece of blue paper. "If we can't find the antidote in time, then this will become official. Maxwell Smart. Classification: Deceased."

I did my best to look worried and tried to glance at the paper. The chief didn't let me.

"Thank you for your help, Doctor. We won't give up hope."

When the chief wasn't looking, I palmed the vial, hoping I wouldn't have to kill the man who tried to kill me. I didn't believe in killing, even to save my own life. It was just that I wanted to preserve what was left of the continuity of the episode, if indeed it was the same one I grew up remembering.

When we arrived back at Max's apartment, Al watched as I went to the supine unconscious woman on the couch, checked her pulse and lifted her eyelids. She was all right, but still under the influence of the knockout gas. The note, the tutti frutti cigarettes and the peppermint matches were right where we left them. I told Al I wasn't planning on killing the man who tried to do me in. I believed in "Thou shalt not kill". Al said that the real Max in the QL waiting room admired my moral choice, but also said I wouldn't last very long as an agent. I would probably get killed during my first assignment. I thought he was underestimating me.

"You aren't really going to go through with this, are you, Sam? Pretend you are some body you aren't?"

"That's just hilarious, coming from you, Al. What do you think I have been doing for the past twenty-plus years? Don't worry. I will be able to pull it off."

"Well, good luck with that. I just hope you don't have any more dizzy spells. Max said the disguises are in the top drawer of his dresser upstairs."

"Are there any more cute little surprises in store for me if I venture up there again?"

"Max isn't one hundred percent sure, but he said you should be fine. Just to be on the safe side, throw something on the steps."

I grabbed a pillow from the other side of the couch from 99 and tossed it randomly on the steps. There was one more booby trap there, one that was never seen in any of the old episodes. A trap door opened and swallowed the pillow. Something inside it tore it to shreds. Feathers came spewing out of the opening. Both of us gaped at the sight, in shock. When it finished, the trap door closed on its own accord. I was very glad I had missed that on my first trip upstairs. Al could have sworn he heard something that sounded like a burp.

"Well, what do you know? A built-in garbage disposal in the steps." I said, quite rattled. "What will these crazy Control people think of next?"

"Max said, to deactivate that, go to the front entry way and press the second white button on the wall. There should be no more nasty surprises." He said, still staring at the place where the trap door had opened.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

I decided to go for a mustache and a goatee and apply them when I got to the airport. I was thinking that if I was observed by KAOS agents leaving Max's apartment in full disguise, it would put our secret agent friend in danger. Al said that I would look like a beatnik. I told him that it was good that I would look like one, since I was supposed to be a black sheep in the Smart family. I went to Max's closet, did another sweep with the spear that I had withdrawn from the steps, just in case, and pulled out a black turtleneck shirt and a suit to match. I also found a cool medallion with a peace sign on it on top of Max's dresser. I decided to remove Max's shoes for a pair without a phone. I didn't need to be embarrassed if someone from Control were to meet me at the airport. Also, I felt that Max's life depended upon them buying the fact that I was his twin brother. In addition to that, his shoes clashed with the outfit I had chosen. A suitcase was in the corner, and I dragged it out, filling it with whatever I could find for a pretend overnight stay, including Max's blue suit with the red and blue tie. If I was going to pretend to land at the airport, I would have to have some luggage. I then thought I should go to a hospital and borrow some doctor clothes. I would return them if I was successful and didn't leap out of here. I remembered how doctors dressed in the sixties, and I kind of liked the look. I thought I should also procure a black doctor's bag, with all the items that were put into one. If the chief decides to send some agents to the terminal to guarantee my safety, I would now be prepared. Al started to coach me on sixties slang. I said I remembered some of it. If I was going to portray a beatnik, I might as well get into character.

We heard a groan from downstairs. It was 99, of course. She was coming to a bit earlier than we thought she would. I put the suitcase at the top of the stairs and raced down and Al appeared behind me as I offered her a hand up. She shook her head, declining, looking at me curiously.

"You still aren't Max, are you? Have you been here gawking at me all this time?"

"No, I'm not some kind of a pervert. The chief took me to Doctor Steel. I'm planning on wearing a disguise because I'm going to pretend to be Max's twin brother, Samuel Smart."

She frowned. "You're really serious. I thought that was a dream. You must know that Max doesn't have a brother. Why did you let me get knocked out?"

"I didn't know that was going to happen. I was just on my way to the airport to pretend I flew here from Minnesota. Will you drive me there?"

"To Minnesota?" She asked her mind still a little foggy from the knockout gas. Al chuckled and I smiled.

"No, to the terminal. I have to pretend I'm getting off an airplane. It's also possible the chief will have someone stationed there to guarantee my safety."

"Good thinking, Ma—I mean, Sam. You're pretty intelligent."

"Thanks, my dear. I'm also a physician. I have to get to a hospital and borrow some doctor items."

"So, you were sent back in time to help Dr. Steel find a cure for Max? The chief told me he had been poisoned."

I nodded yes.

"If you are looking for a doctor's uniform, Max has one here that he used in a recent previous mission. I can get it for you."

"That's very kind of you, my dear." Al told me the title of the three-part second season episode she was referring to. I remembered seeing bits of it when I was a child. As she ascended the stairs, I turned to Al. "Al, how did she know where to look for Max's doctor smock? Was there some hanky panky going on behind the scenes with these two?"

"I don't think so, Sam. Remember, little children used to watch this show. It's pretty G-rated. I see you have quite a bit of Max's libido."

"Then, how did she know?"

"How did I know what?" 99 asked. She was standing at the top of the steps, stuffing the doctor's uniform into the suitcase.

"How did you know where to look in Max's bedroom for his doctor smock?"

"Oh, that. I knew about it ever since I watched Dr. Bascomb install the TV camera in the picture on his wall."

"Oh, I thought that you and Max were playing doctor."

Al cracked up and she scowled at me. Then, her expression softened, and in an almost perfect English accent, she spoke again.

"I'm a good girl, I am."

"I'm sure you are, Elisa. No offense."

"None taken." She said with a little smile. She dragged the suitcase down the steps and then she noticed the items on the coffee table. She picked up the note and started to read. It said:

'_Dear 99: In case you wake up before we come back, Max said that he was sorry about the little addition to his shoe phone. We have gone to visit the good doctor Steel. Please wait for us to return and we will explain about the candy cigarettes and peppermint matches. With love, Sam and Al.'_

She picked the other items off the table, looking at me quizzically. I glanced at Al, who was busy with his hand link.

"Well, Mr. Beckett? What about these?"

"They were left here by that woman Janet who tried to poison Max." I explained. "She said that a Mr.—uh…" I paused for a moment, trying to recall the name. Al supplied it. "Hercules was responsible for the poisoned pellet in Max's drink."

She examined the items closely. "These came from Happy's Health Food Store. I will follow up on this lead, Sam. I know where that is. It might look fishy if I come with you to the airport. If agents are stationed there, they might think that it's you—I mean Max—in disguise."

"I agree. I know that you and Max are an item. What am I doing to drive? I don't want to risk driving Max's car. There's no telling what he has installed on that thing."

"Take mine. I don't have any devices installed on my vehicle yet. It's that little white Dodge out there in Max's driveway." She dug into her purse and handed me the keys.

"Thanks, but, if I remember correctly, it doesn't even have power steering. It gives the term muscle car a whole new meaning. Also, I wouldn't want to wreck it for you."

"Well, if I can drive it, you can. Besides, I've got great insurance." She said with a smile.

"I'll bet she does." Al said with a smile, recalling a certain season four episode in which she stopped short with a golf cart and told Max she always drove like that.

I wondered why she had to drive something as basic as a Dodge Dart hardtop when Max got to drive a sweet little blue hot rod. I then recalled that women were paid about three-fourths of what a man made, doing the same job, if they were fortunate enough to have a job outside the home. I handed the keys back to her, and told her that I would be better off taking a taxi. She called me a chicken, but I didn't mind. She then went upstairs to get the doctor's uniform for me and stuffed it into the suitcase at the top of the stairs. She brought it down for me. I thanked her, watching as she called the city cab company on the conventional phone by the couch. I pulled out Max's wallet out of his back pocket to see if he had any money for the fare. I asked Al to ask him if it would be all right to use some of it. He said that it would be fine; just don't spend all of it. He only had about thirty dollars in there. I saw his picture on his driver's license and gasped. He closely resembled Don Adams, the original Maxwell Smart.

"What's wrong?" 99 asked, seeing my jaw drop. "No money?"

"No, it's just that your Max closely resembles the TV Max. It's incredible."

Al started to hum the Get Smart theme song, then the theme to The Twilight Zone.

"Shut up, Al."

***

I arrived at the airport without being accosted by KAOS. I slipped into the men's bathroom, found it empty, which was a little odd for such a large metropolitan terminal, and applied the mustache and goatee. I was grateful that there was nobody in there. I looked at the reflection and said, "Looking good, Max, old boy." I swiftly ducked out of the lavatory and headed for the outside where the planes landed, actually beginning to feel like a secret agent. I suddenly realized I may have made a mistake by addressing my reflection as "Max", but it was too late now. I would just have to hope that KAOS wasn't watching with hidden cameras. I waited until I heard an announcement for a plane from Minnesota. I guessed that, even in this time period, planes probably flew from all over in Washington, DC. It wasn't long until I heard: " _Flight 152 from Minneapolis now arriving at gate seven"_

It was my cue. It didn't take long to get to the gate and I scurried like a squirrel into the baggage holding area. I sat on the conveyer belt with the suitcase and the doctor bag I had hastily packed and was soon in the terminal. To my consternation, the song "Secret Agent Man" was playing on some radio somewhere. I looked heavenward. Somebody up there must have a strange sense of humor. I felt that someone was staring at me. I glanced down and saw an adorable little blonde girl and an old man, apparently her grandfather. She pointed in my direction and they both peered at me with wonder. The old man was wearing a straw fedora, a white suit with a black Bolero tie, and was quite plump. He was holding the little girl's hand. The child was wearing a cute little navy blue dress with red piping and appliquéd daisies. I held up a hand and made a peace sign.

"Economy coach, no frills, man." I explained casually. I knew the no frills thing started in the seventies, and this shtick with the conveyor belt was from the movie "Airplane!", but I figured it was OK. It would be brand new to these folks in the sixties. The old man smiled, chuckled, and shook his head and went about his business. Al laughed too.

I soon blended in with the many other travelers in the busy terminal. Security measures in the sixties were a joke compared to our time, but nobody seemed too dangerous. I suddenly pondered why people could carry and conceal a firearm on their persons with no questions asked and not be approached by any police officer, yet they couldn't hide in a mailbox like Agent 13. As I was thinking about this, someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to see who it was, a little apprehensively. It was, to my relief, Larrabee and Agent 44. Apparently, I was right about the chief wanting to keep me safe. I didn't let on that I knew who they were and kept my cover.

"Are you Dr. Smart?" Agent 44 asked. I nodded. "I'm Edwards and this is Larrabee. We are friends of your brother's. As you probably know, there was an attempt on his life."

"That seems to happen a lot in his greeting card business."

"Uh…right. Please follow us."

They led me out of the terminal and into a waiting car. They drove me to a remote doctor's office at the edge of the city. The name on the door was Abbott Norman, M.D..


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

I paused at the door, wondering why that name looked so familiar. Al told me without me having to ask that that was the name on the door where Max had yelled a drawn-out "Help!" in the episode. He also told me that it was actually a reversal of the name of the director of this particular episode. I thought carefully about what I was going to say next. The two men from Control were still with me.

"Who's this cat? I thought we were going to be helping a little doctor chick." I asked in full beatnik mode.

"This, uh, cat is not going to be here. We are using this office as a cover for the good lady doctor." Responded Larrabee, looking a little uncomfortable by my contemporary slang.

"If the same people who tried to kill your brother get wind of you, they might try to do you in as well. They are a real bunch of thugs." Edwards said.

"It's very nice of you cats to think of my safety. Max said his bag was greeting cards, but I'm beginning to think he's into something a lot more hazardous. Oh, by the way, should I get into my square doctor threads or do you dig this suit?"

Agent 44, also known as Edwards, and Larrabee looked at each other. I knew I was probably talking a bit too much like the Groovy Guru, but I was a kid in this era. I really liked the way the hippies and beatniks talked.

"It's OK with us." Larrabee answered with a shrug. "Whatever turns you on."

"Groovy. Level with me, guys. What's Max gotten himself involved in?"

"Sorry, Doctor, but we are not at liberty to discuss it. Please follow us."

"Lead the way, you guys." I shrugged, trying to act non chalant.

Edwards opened the door and we stepped in, single file. I spotted Agent 99 seated primly on a brown leather chair in the doctor's waiting room. She stood as we entered. Our eyes met and she blushed. I could tell that she thought I looked very handsome in my disguise. She glanced at the medallion around my neck and smiled mysteriously. She handed me a folded piece of paper.

"You must be Doctor Samuel Smart. Max has told me so much about you." She was a good actress. "Can you please give him this message?"

"Sure, sugar. No sweat." I said, putting the note in my pocket. "Are you Doctor Steel?" I asked calmly, keeping my cover.

"No, I'm a friend of Max's. I will tell her you're here. Excuse me, gentlemen."

She stepped into the next room. After a few minutes, we heard a woman scream and a scuffle, followed by a muffled gasp and a sickening thud. There was no mistaking what happened. KAOS must have gotten wind that Dr. Steel was here in this office under cover. Edwards told me to stay in the waiting room and Larrabee was ordered to stay with me. Agent 44 paused for a moment, and then burst through the exam room door, his gun poised. KAOS had kidnapped Dr. Steel and Agent 99 was knocked out cold, this time by a blunt instrument. There was no sign of the KAOS people or the good doctor. Edwards put 99 over his shoulder and came back in the waiting room, looking at me worriedly. KAOS moved pretty fast, I thought. There must be a secret way to get out of the exam room quickly. I visually examined 99 and determined that she was going to need an x ray, and I asked for a stretcher. Larrabee went into the exam room closet and found a gurney. I gently placed her on it.

"We should really call the fuzz." I said, still trying to keep up the pretense of being a beatnik.

"If by that, you mean the police, we can't do that, Doctor." Larrabee answered. "We are a secret organization. I might as well tell you that Max and 99 there are secret agents."

"Big surprise." Was all I said, wheeling 99 into the other room. There was a large x ray machine and a padded examination table in there. Larrabee gave me a hand in putting her on it. I searched for the small shielded room so I wouldn't be affected by the radiation. I thanked him and asked him to leave the room for his own safety. It was a pretty serious blow to her skull. I had to ask Al how to turn the x ray machine on, being I hadn't seen a model like this one before. I did another visual examination. _She's going to have a pretty bad headache when she recovers, _I thought. It was then I remembered the message that she had handed to me in the waiting room. I opened it. It said that the chief could not reach me on my shoe phone and decided to have me met at the airport and brought here. She also gave me directions on how to get to the Hercules Gym, just in case something happened to her. I had a feeling I was going to wish she had provided me with directions back to Max's apartment, but I wasn't as concerned about that as I was with her.

Soon, I had the machine running. I breathed a sigh of relief, seeing that there was no damage to her spinal cord and no fractures. It was, however, a severe concussion. She was going to recover, but it was going to take some time. I thought of getting back into Max's blue suit, but then thought better of it. Now was not the time. I was still pretending to be his brother, and it would arouse suspicion if "Max" suddenly appeared.

Edwards poked his head through the door and asked me if 99 was going to be all right. I nodded a yes. He said that we must assume that Max had been kidnapped as well, since nobody had seen him since my "arrival". _The plot thickens, _I thought. I just hoped that Miss Steel was not hurt or killed. Max needed her as badly as he needed me. I asked Larrabee to call an ambulance for 99 and bring her to a hospital. There was little else I could do for her in this small doctor's office. She was stabilized, but she needed more help than I could give her here. I gave him additional instructions on what to say to the doctor once they arrived at the hospital. He said he understood and left the room. I looked around. There was a sink to wash hands in, a cabinet full of medications, swabs, tongue depressors, et cetera. I then decided to pour some of Miss Steel's poison out on the ground near the building, if I could do it without being seen. I didn't want to risk pouring it down the sink for ecological reasons. I found another vial and filled it with knockout drops. I filled a syringe with some of it, just in case KAOS appeared again. The two vials had different color liquids in them, so it was easy to tell them apart.

I proceeded to work on the antidote for Smart, but couldn't be sure that his blood sample was here. I decided to draw some more of Max's blood. I did so, unobserved. I wasn't as squeamish as he was, recalling another episode now, in which he fainted when a KAOS man stuck him with truth serum. Finding a microscope in the cabinet, and some empty test tubes, and a small notebook of Dr. Steel's that the KAOS people missed, I got to work, trying hard not to worry about the two ladies. KAOS were more vicious than I thought. I felt very badly that this had to happen to them, and considered it was partly my fault for suggesting to the chief that I should be in a conventional doctor's office. I wondered how KAOS discovered that Control was here. Who could have told them?

Al said that this version of the classic episode was so far off course that it was impossible for Ziggy to make any predictions or guesses. He did not voice his suspicion that Dr. Norman was the culprit and was keeping silent, knowing I had a job to do. Finding the antidote would take some time. The moment I did, I planned to change back into Max's blue suit. I wished that Dr. Steel wasn't kidnapped, but the notebook looked helpful. She had very readable and pretty handwriting. I asked Al to have Gushie center on her to see where and how she was. He was doubtful he could do that, since she was a fictional character, but gave it a try anyway.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

When Dr. Steel returned to consciousness, her eyes were stinging. She could see nothing but blackness, and was never more terrified in her life. The last things she remembered were watching the evil oriental criminal known as the Claw use his ugly magnetic prosthesis on her friend. It was the first time she had seen him in person, but she knew what he looked like from some mug shots in the chief's office. She tried to think of something more pleasant, and recalled Mr. Smart's predilection for mispronouncing this criminal's title. She had only seen 86 once before, at an office Christmas party. He was quite a cluck, but she enjoyed his company. Most of her friends looked like doctors, except for one new agent she had befriended, Agent 100. Her real name was Susan Hilton. She was a little strange, acting as if she knew the future forty years in advance, and she liked conversing with her about computers one could hold on their laps and people talking on wireless phones. The latter was not too hard to imagine. Max's shoe phone was wireless, and so was her shepherd's crook that she used sometimes in her act on stage. Her thoughts drifted back to her new predicament. They had chloroformed her after she screamed. She had a vague memory of an opening in the floor of Norman's office, then nothing. Trembling, she stood and groped for something to sit on. She wasn't wearing a costume, but was now wearing a lab coat over a very becoming Jackie-K inspired pink suit, minus the pillbox hat. It was chilly in this place, so it helped a little. She started to weep. Her best friend Agent 99 was probably killed, and she thought she would die too in this dungeon, wherever it was. She soon bumped into the legs of a metal folding chair with her shin. It was painful, so she reached down to massage the area. She examined the chair with her hands and found the seat. She sat down, now numb with apprehension as to what was going to happen next.

Al was partly right. Dr. Norman was a KAOS agent. He was working for the Claw and for Mr. Hercules. However, he was now being inhabited by Alia the "evil leaper", as if he wasn't evil enough. The Claw had escaped from prison weeks ago and had hatched this plan to dispose of troublesome agents 86 and 99. Dr. Steel had been abducted and blinded to prevent her from helping 86 find the antidote to the slow poison. She suddenly heard a man's voice in the darkness.

"You poor dear! What have those nozzles done to you?"

She never heard anyone being referred to as a nozzle before. If her situation hadn't been so terrifyingly serious, she would have laughed. She tensed up, gripping the sides of the chair.

"Please…whoever you are, don't hurt me. I was just doing my job."

"You can hear me?" Al asked, astounded. This had only happened once before, when Sam had leaped into a black guy to help an elderly southern lady not get killed by a train. He had to really scream and swear to get the old lady the black guy worked for to hear him. Most of the time, only little children and animals could see or hear him. How was this possible?

"Y-yes. I can hear you. What are you going to do to me?"

"Nothing, honey. I'm not here to hurt you. Sam asked me to check on you to make sure you were all right."

"Sam Smart sent you? Then, you're trapped here too. Where are you?"

It was then that Al knew she couldn't see. He could tell that she was badly frightened. The room wasn't very well lit, but he could see her sitting by a filthy old window that was too small to crawl out of. The walls were solid concrete. There was a single bare incandescent low wattage light bulb hanging from a tangle of wires from the ceiling. The only piece of furniture in the room was the metal chair she was sitting on.

"I'm right in front of you, but I'm not really in this cell with you."

"I don't understand."

"It's rather hard to explain. Just think of me as a friend."

Dr. Steel didn't believe in angels, but he sure sounded like one. His voice was very soothing.

"Is my friend 99 dead?"

"No, Sam had her brought to a hospital. She's unconscious, but she will recover. Also, I think Sam's on the verge of finding the antidote for Max. Are you all right?" He used his hand link to see if she would get her eyesight back or if the blindness was permanent. Since this experience had veered way off from its original course, Ziggy was giving no answers. They were in completely uncharted territory. Al guessed that she might, since she was in at least three episodes.

"I think so. What's your name? I'm Emma Steel, Control's head toxicologist."

Al smiled, pleasantly surprised, knowing that her first name was never revealed in the original series. Emma Steel sounded like Emma Peele. He liked it. He was quite fond of The Avengers, another great product of sixties television.

"I'm Al Calavicci. Where is this place?"

"I—I don't know. All I know is that I was kidnapped by the criminal known as the Claw."

Al's eyes widened. The Claw, a first season villain, must have escaped from jail. He specialized in kidnapping beautiful women, and, from the looks of it, not just blondes.

"He probably abducted you to prevent you from helping Sam find the antidote."

"You might be right, Mr. Calavicci." She answered thoughtfully, now looking a little calmer. She considered that they might just keep her here until the one o'clock deadline tomorrow, but why would they blind her? She had figured out that they blinded her when Al mentioned that he was right in front of her. If the room were really black as pitch, he wouldn't be able to see her, either. Maybe they blinded her just to be mean, or may have thought she was more resourceful than she appeared and might escape. If she had, she would have no idea where to go. KAOS people were mostly two-dimensional thinkers.

"I'm going to leave for now. Just sit tight and try not to worry about Agent 99 or about being hurt or killed. I have a hunch they aren't going to harm you. I'm going to ask Max where the Claw's lair is."

"Wait! How are you going to get out of this cell?"

There was no answer. He was gone as mysteriously as he arrived. Was she having auditory hallucinations?

***

Dr. Steel's notes were very concise and I found the antidote in six hours instead of the six months the good doctor thought it would take her. Edwards and Larrabee went back to Control with Agent 99 in a hippie van, converted by Control into an ambulance on the inside. I thought that was very ingenious. They couldn't risk bringing her to a real hospital, from past experience with KAOS doctors and with hospital red tape. Control now had its own medical facility and they said it was very well equipped. Al appeared soon after they had left and told me about the Claw. I felt very guilty about putting the two women's lives in danger, and decided to attempt a rescue, after I had administered the antidote to myself. There was still plenty of time to figure out how we were going to get to the Claw's secret hideout. I decided to look around for the secret trap door where they had abducted Miss Steel. It had to be here somewhere. Al told me that Max was very upset about my decision to rescue Dr. Steel, and was pacing the floor of the QL waiting room worriedly. I could be killed, being I was only a civilian. He kept saying in his unique and comical muddled way that he couldn't let me risk his or my life like that. The claw was more than a kidnapper. He was a murdering vicious fiend. I said that I understood that, but I just couldn't sit by and do nothing. I continued to scan the doctor's office. There was something strange about that x ray machine I had used. There were extra buttons on it that I couldn't identify that I didn't notice before. I approached it cautiously. Suddenly, I heard a panel in the floor open, and I stepped back in alarm. The opening was near the x ray machine. I remembered Max's hand gun, but I was too late to retrieve it. It was in Max's suitcase in Norman's waiting room. I grabbed the hypo with the knockout drops, and placed it within easy reach so I wouldn't stick myself with it.

I was still wearing my beatnik disguise. I had placed the two vials I had filled earlier in either pocket of Max's black pants. The left had the knockout drops and the right had the poison that Dr. Steel had duplicated. Whoever was emerging from that opening was probably from KAOS. I didn't want to kill whoever it was, so I decided to employ my Karate skills.

The man who emerged was dressed in sixties' doctor's garb, with a stethoscope around his neck. He seemed surprised to see me.

"_Smart!"_

He obviously wasn't expecting anyone to be here in the wee hours of the morning, especially someone like Max. He went for a concealed weapon, and I swiftly gave him a Karate chop at the base of his neck. He tumbled to the floor, and his weapon slid into view. I picked it up, injected his arm with enough knockout drops to put him under for at least six hours, and raced out of there, grabbing Max's suitcase and 99's purse. Her car keys were probably in it.

Zoey, Al's counterpart, made a great big stink about Alia not being able to recognize Sam Beckett. Lothos had figured out that Sam was in this leap, helping Max find the antidote. Up to this point, Alia was having fun pretending to be Janet, the woman who poisoned Max, but it was not as much fun and very uncomfortable leaping into Dr. Norman, her first male subject. She wasn't paying much attention when Zoey said that Sam was the one dressed in black. Previously to being shot in the arm with knockout drops, she had been in Dr. Steel's cell, pretending to examine her to see if she was all right.

I swiftly located and jumped into 99's white Dart and found her keys, my heart pounding. I would have to drive this thing after all. I jammed the key into the ignition in the dash board, something else I wasn't expecting, being used to putting car keys on the sides of steering wheel columns. I turned the ignition, quickly put it into reverse, and tore out of there. I peeled out, fearing that there may be more of those rotten hoodlums. So, Dr. Norman was a KAOS man. Who would have thought?

It was dark outside, and I had no idea where I was headed. I switched on the headlights and tried to calm myself. I decided to turn on 99's car radio. Al thanked me, knowing how great the sixties were in the world of music. A song that neither of us had heard since childhood was playing: "Peppermint Twist". I couldn't recall the name of the artist, since I was very little when the song first came out. Al told me that the song was by someone named Joey Dee and the Starliters. It helped me calm down a little too, and I started to sing along. I was alone on the road, except for Al, who appeared in the back seat. I glanced at the gas gauge. No problem there. I had about a half a tank. I asked Al to get back to Dr. Steel and ask her if 99 had any gadgets I could use to contact Control, as I peeled off the fake facial hair and put it in the glove compartment. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be to drive this vehicle. Al said that once you are at a good clip, it's a lot easier to steer. I agreed. Al disappeared and reappeared a few minutes later, and said that Miss Steel appeared to be sleeping on the floor of her cell and he didn't want to disturb her. She needed the rest. Al then went to ask Max if 99 had anything in her purse I could use. He came back a few moments later and told me about her compact. It was really a tiny two-way radio, directly connected to Control headquarters. I was amazed. This must be the precursor to the world's first cell phone. Al burst my bubble by saying it was nothing more than a glorified walkie talkie. I felt a little silly using it, but I figured that nobody would see me here in the dark. I pulled over to the side of the road under a street lamp and found the device. It looked relatively simple to use. I got back in the car, remembering that I had to change back into Max's blue suit. I had thrown the suitcase into the back seat. I figured that this probably was a good place to change clothes, being that there wasn't anyone else around, and I probably wouldn't get arrested for indecent exposure. I took the two vials out of the black pants and threw the poison in the ditch, vial and all. Now I looked like Max again. I put the black apparel into the suitcase and put it in the trunk. I then attempted to use the compact to contact Control, but soon discovered that the watch battery used to operate it was dead. Now what was I going to do? Al then reminded me about the other cleverly concealed phones that our secret agent friend had used in the series. I checked his belt first. It was nothing but a belt, as far as I could tell. I checked his watch. It looked like there was nothing there, either. I realized I was still wearing the peace sign medallion. The classic Little Richard tune "Tutti Frutti" was now playing on 99's car radio, another favorite. Al thought it was more than a wild coincidence that those two songs would be playing at this particular time. The medallion was beginning to itch. I thought that it must be made of some sort of cheap metal. I took it off and put it in Max's coat pocket. I wished that I could have driven Max's little Sunbeam Tiger convertible. Al said that it had a phone in the steering wheel, with a kooky Barbie doll-sized receiver. I recalled that 99 had said that there were no devices installed in her car. Finally, I checked Max's tie. I sighed. Sometimes, a tie was just a tie.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

I drove the little white Dart in front of a small café with drawn horizontal blinds and a hand-written "help wanted" sign in the window. I decided to go in and ask directions. I wasn't one of those macho he-man types who were afraid to admit they were lost. Al told me to hold on for a moment, saying he had to check something out concerning this eatery. He came back after a few moments and warned me not to go in there. He said he was certain that that little café was the same one Max would be going into in a near future episode, when he would be framed for a bank robbery and a murder of a guard and would be on the run. I had forgotten all about that episode, and it was a good one too. God knows that Max would have enough problems when that happened. I didn't want to give him any more. Al saw a gas station on the other side of the street, and we went in there instead. I had Al check with Max again to find out if he minded if I went into the adjoining store and purchased a map and maybe a bite to eat. I had been too busy running from KAOS to worry about a little thing like food and hadn't eaten since I leaped into him. I now realized I was hungry. He said it was OK with him. Time travelers pretending to be him needed to eat, too, and said it was the least he could do for the man who saved his life. I approached the attendant, a heavy-set woman in her forties. She had some gray hair at her temples, mixed with ash blonde. It was cut short into a pixie style, quite popular in this decade. She peered at me through her cat eye bifocals. They made her look much older than what she probably was.

"May I help you, sir?" She asked pleasantly.

"Yes, ma'am. Do you have maps of the area by any chance?"

She nodded and pointed to a revolving rack, which also held post cards and magazines. I found the map and smiled when I saw it was only fifty cents. I thanked her and went to the store shelves for a little breakfast to take with me. I found a loaf of bread, some eggs, butter, and a box of oatmeal. There was even some milk in real glass bottles, and I took one. I placed the items on the counter and she rang them up. The total came to a little over five dollars. I paid her and told her to have a nice day. She told me to have one, too, with a sweet smile. She was looking at me like she knew who I was supposed to be and thought I was cute. Max did have a way about him that was very endearing to the opposite sex, according to Al. He said that a grown man who was afraid of hypodermic needles, thunderstorms and the dark, not to mention "gollywoggles"…what woman wouldn't love that?

Unknown to us, the woman in the convenience store was the new Control agent that Miss Steel had just befriended. She was recruited from forty-two years in the future by a man who called himself Supervisor 194, and was a part of a super-secret time travel division. She indeed knew who I was. In her childhood, she and her grandfather had argued on what the guy looked like who was on the conveyer belt in the Washington airport. Her grandfather insisted that it was Don Adams, probably there as a publicity stunt for his show. She didn't think he looked anything like the famous actor, and later realized that the man she saw bore a striking resemblance to Scott Backula. She was told to expect a man who looked like Maxwell Smart in the convenience store that day, having been informed that he was really Sam Beckett, the man she saw on the conveyor belt when she was five. She now knew that her grandpa and she had both been correct. She wished she could go to him now and apologize, but he probably would not recognize her. Also, it was against time travel rules to visit relatives in the past, something about the dangers of creating paradoxes, or something to that effect.

I stepped out of the store and discovered that the sun was beginning to rise. I recalled that our crazy little secret agent pal had his real name and address in the white pages of the city phone book. I placed the groceries in the car and then seeing a phone booth on the corner, ran across the deserted intersection. There was a phone book in it, and I found Max's number and address. I felt around inside Max's blue blazer for his cigarette case, so I would have something to write on and then recalled he had a little business card in his wallet, with a fake name, saying he was a "furrier to the stars". In the sixties, there wasn't much talk about animal rights. Al grinned and said that he had had that card for about three years; ever since he thwarted a KAOS plan to discredit Control in court, by making him dress up like a chicken. Al said he remembered how hilarious that episode was, especially at the end when the chief thought he had laid eggs. I thought Al was joking. Roosters don't lay eggs. He said I took things way too seriously. I went back to the car to consult the map and to see if I could find a pen to write Max's address down on the back of the card. I found one in the glove compartment, behind where I put the fake facial hair. I had Max's legendary memory, so I had to return to the phone booth to get the address again. Max then told Al to tell me to look on the other side of the card. I had made those trips for nothing. Embarrassed, I went back to the car and buried my face in the map. It was then that Max told Al that the medallion in his pocket was a birthday gift from 99 last year, and that Dr. Bascomb had integrated a little homing device into it. I then remembered Bascomb. He was a tall older man with thick glasses. Max once had to stay with him because he disintegrated nearly everything in his apartment and was evicted for a time. They had to tell the land lady that he was a secret agent and that Control would pay for the damages. Max also said in his "distinctive and unique" voice that he "believed" that his address was also on his driver's license. We asked him why he hadn't told us that in the first place. He said that in his line of work, it was not a good idea to volunteer too much information, and he needed a little amusing diversion himself, to get his mind off 99 and Miss Steel. I had the feeling he also secretly wanted to get back at me for calling him a moron earlier in this leap. Al then suggested that we leave the car parked here at the filling station and take a cab to Max's apartment, now that I had the address. It would take less time, but I didn't want to abandon 99's little car just for the sake of convenience.

It took about three hours to find Max's apartment, and I was relieved to be there. It had been one heck of a night. It was about nine o'clock when I stepped through the door with the little bag of groceries, minus the milk, which I had drunk. When we had arrived, there were two more glass bottles of milk on his doorstep. I had forgotten that milk was still being delivered in this time period. I put them in Max's fridge and made myself some oatmeal on his stove, after a short search in his cabinets for dishes and a saucepan for the oatmeal. I also made some toast and buttered it when it was still warm. Al noted that Max liked it that way too.

I considered that the guy from the Control Termination Department would show up eventually. I couldn't wait to tell him that reports of my friend's demise were greatly exaggerated. Al told me his name was Elwood Box. I put the remaining groceries away and then went back into the living room and plopped down on the couch after I had eaten and did the dishes. Al asked me if I was still planning on rescuing Dr. Steel. I told him no. I was too tired, after running from KAOS most of the night, and that Max was right. It would be too dangerous. The object of this leap was to keep Max alive, not to get him killed. I did, however, have a personal score to settle with Mr. Hercules. I was beginning to really care about Steel and the others, and was going to teach him a lesson, by pretending to poison him. Al said that he was sure that Steel and 99 would both be all right. Al reminded me about the janitor friend of Max's named John that Max owed five dollars to, and then also said that in the episode, Max didn't arrive at his apartment until around noon. If everything from here on in went like the episode, we had three hours before John the janitor and Box would show up.

***

Dr. Steel was rudely awakened and roughly brought to her feet from the cold hard floor where she had collapsed the night before. She didn't have time to cry out as she felt someone jab her with a needle. She quickly sank back into oblivion. When she came to again, she felt she was in a moving car. She was too frightened to speak, and still couldn't see. Was it morning? She felt something like a gun barrel pressed against her side. The song "Paint it Black" by the new group The Rolling Stones was playing on their car radio. _What could be more weirdly appropriate?_ She thought. She heard a man's voice order his fellow thugs in the seat next to her to dump her out, telling her that Agent 86 had no time to find a cure now. She heard the door open and screamed in fright when they shoved her out of the still moving vehicle. She fell and cracked her head on a curb. Staggering to her feet, she tripped on something and crawled onto some grass, not knowing where she was. She heard a gunshot, and then felt a terrible stabbing pain in her lower back. Thinking she was a goner, she fell in a dead faint.

Agent 13 was on sentry duty that morning, behind the bushes that lined the Control building and saw Dr. Steel collapse onto the lawn, after being tossed out of a moving car. He called for backup on his wrist communicator. Agent 44, also on sentry duty, after having just returned from checking up on 99, who was still unconscious, helped Agent 13 take Miss Steel down the steep stairs that led to the four security doors. The chief didn't want to risk further injury to her by making her drop in the phone booth, so ordered the men to bring her to the left concealed emergency elevator from the bottom of the steps. The elevator went directly to Control's own infirmary. A Control doctor named Ferris was quickly at her side, and gasped when he lifted her eyelids.

"What is it, Doctor?" 13 asked with concern.

"It looks like they fitted her with some sort of opaque contacts, like the kind they use in horror movies." Ferris answered, gently lifting them from her corneas and checking her eyes. He could tell that she had been crying, and it was a good thing she had. The tears helped save her eyesight. He also checked her vital signs and checked her for injuries. He could not find anything more serious than the abrasion on her forehead and concluded she would be fine in a while. He asked a nurse to go and get some iodine and a bandage for the abrasion, applying it when Agent 13 mentioned that he thought he heard a gunshot from the KAOS car that had dumped her off. Dr. Ferris had already examined her and assured him that she was not shot. The chief soon arrived and went to her bedside.

"Will she be all right, Doctor?"

"I believe so, Chief. She just fainted. I probably would have too in her place. The poor thing looks like she's been through an old washing machine wringer."

Steel was regaining consciousness. The first thing she asked was where she was, and found out she was in Control's infirmary. She was surprised that she was alive and could see again. She asked them how she could possibly be alive; being sure that she had been shot in the back. Al appeared at that moment, right next to the chief. She could now see him as well as hear him.

"It was a car backfiring, Emma, not a gunshot." He informed her gently. "Your back pain was probably from trying to sleep on that cement floor in the KAOS cell."

"Al? I thought I had imagined you. Where have you been?"

"I was helping Sam find his way around Washington. We've never been here in our lives."

"Isn't that a bit like the blind leading the blind?"

Al grinned and nodded. "Touché, Miss Steel."

The chief looked around and could see or hear no one.

"Dr. Steel, who are you talking to?"

"It's my new friend, Mr. Al Calavicci, Chief. He was in the KAOS cell with me. I think he's my guardian angel."

"You poor girl, you must be delirious."

"Chief…" interrupted another weak familiar female voice from the bed beside Dr. Steel's. The chief turned his head to look at who had spoken. It was, of course, 99.

"99, are you all right?" He asked compassionately.

"My head…hurts. I think…I'll live. I…have to tell you something…."

"What is it, 99?" The chief asked as softly as he could, knowing that she just came out of a coma.

"Emma…is not delirious. Mr….Calavicci is real. He's an …assistant to…Sam…who isn't Max's brother. His last name…is Beckett. He's…from the future. I saw him…earlier…wearing the medallion…with the homing device." She groaned and drifted back to sleep.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

I, Sam, decided to take a break and watch a little sixties TV, sitting on Max's couch and Al had Gushie center on Dr. Steel again to see how she was doing and where she was now. I could tell he was beginning to exhibit genuine affection and concern for the girl. He came back a few minutes later and told me about the medallion and that Miss Steel was recovering in Control headquarters from her ordeal with KAOS. 99 had forgotten the frequency for the medallion I had been wearing, but Dr. Bascomb knew it. Al told me he would return in a while, explaining that the chief was worried about Max, and that he was going to try and assure him with help from Miss Steel that Max was no longer in danger of an untimely demise.

Only a few were aware of the secret time travel division of Control, headed up by a man who called himself Supervisor 194. The chief had a hunch that this Samuel Beckett person that 99 mentioned was still pretending to be Max, and he was going to ask the head of the time travel department to supply one of his own agents to see if it was true that the man impersonating Max was really from the future. Unknown to him, Al decided to follow him out of sheer curiosity. He followed the chief into the phone booth drop elevator as it went up to the fake phone booth. They stepped out, the chief totally unaware that he was being tailed. They went through the four security doors and the chief paused while the fourth remained open for a minute or two. Then, he turned to his left and walked to a large dark green door that had no knob. There was a small communications device of some sort on it that was lighted. The chief spoke into it, saying only that he wanted to converse with Supervisor 194. Intrigued, Al thought that that looked like pretty advanced technology for the sixties, and he knew he had heard the title Supervisor 194 before. He just couldn't remember where. Al followed the chief with increasing interest as they stepped through this green door as it silently slid open. Since Ziggy was programmed to give information only about Get Smart in this leap, it wasn't giving him any clues.

I was wondering what was keeping Al. He should have been back an hour ago, after checking up on Dr. Steel. It was about ten-thirty. I had gotten bored with TV, since there was nothing on but the morning news about the dumb old Vietnam War and Andy Griffith. I must have watched that show hundreds of times through the years, and I was never a big fan. If anyone was watching me, they might have thought it was a bit odd to treat first-run episodes like reruns. I turned the television off and started to pace, then stopped myself, realizing I was acting like Max. There was only one Maxwell Smart, and I was not him.

Al continued to trail the chief to another large door that resembled a bank vault. As he watched with increased fascination, the chief turned some dials and knobs and the door opened slowly. Inside, it looked like an empty chamber. The chief secured the door, and then a strange blue mist surrounded them. Soon, another door opened on the other end of the "vault", and he followed him into what appeared to be a New York high-rise apartment. Puzzled and searching for some clues as to where they might be now, Al looked around. To his right was a large ebony office desk with a pen holder attached. Next to that was a little green glowing cube, which blinked at their arrival. He heard the door close behind him, and he looked back and saw what appeared to be a private bar. The rest of the room looked like any other living room.

"Well, Thaddeus, I guess this finally answers the musical question as to what's behind the green door." Al said casually, not expecting a reaction.

"Who the devil are you?" The chief of Control asked, startled, looking right at him.

Al's eyes widened in total astonishment.

"You can see and hear me?"

"Of course I can. Answer my question." He said, reaching for his hand gun from under his gray blazer. It was a purely defensive move on his part.

"I'm Al Calavicci. I followed you here." Al answered swiftly, even though he knew that the older gentleman couldn't hurt him. He was still only a hologram. However, he wondered why and how he was still visible, looking down now at his non-functioning hand link.

"So, you are real. How did you know my first name?" He asked, removing his hand from under his jacket. Seeing that Al wasn't a threat, he wasn't about to shoot an unarmed man. The chief didn't know he was a hologram, and it would be hard for Al to explain what that was.

"I can answer that." Another man's voice interrupted. "Hello, Mr. Calavicci. At last we meet face to face. Chief, this man is a projection from over forty years in the future, an assistant to Sam Beckett, who has been impersonating Mr. Smart all this time. In his time, almost everyone over forty in his universe knows your first name, including my newest agent, who happens to be quite an expert on this era, having watched a lot of sixties television when she was little. She was that child in the Washington airport, Calavicci. I recently trained her after she stepped through another time portal that Mr. Beckett is going to help me build in the Smart apartment in the near future." He turned and addressed the chief. "Chief, I let Dr. Steel see and hear this gentleman because I knew she needed some comforting in that horrid KAOS cell. We have been watching you and Sam for quite some time, Calavicci."

"You look very familiar, sir. What's your name?"

The other man smiled.

"I think you know. Think late second season, a famous sixties science fiction show everyone loves even in your century. Welcome to 1968."

"Gary Seven?"

The man smiled and nodded. Al was very taken aback. How could this be? He had lost contact with Ziggy and Gushie, and was not sure how he was going to get back to Sam. Supervisor 194 explained that he was keeping the link secure with Ziggy, but had put them on hold with his advanced technology. How could he and the chief of Control have stepped into Seven's apartment from Control headquarters? Seven explained that his apartment and everything around them was a part of the sixties TV universe, just as Control was. Al learned that the new agent he just trained was actually the woman in the convenience store. Al not only stepped through a matter transporter, but a time and multi-dimensional transporter as well. He and the chief were nine months into the future. Al asked Seven why he was training people from the future to be his agents. He explained that people in the sixties would probably not have as good a grasp of the intricacies of time travel like people in the future would, and it was a rare person indeed who would take his offer of joining Control's time travel division seriously.

Seven asked Al what he and Sam were doing in 1967. Al explained that Sam had no control over his time travel destinations, and was just trying to help Max. He also reminded him that Sam had succeeded in finding the antidote to the slow poison. He knew Sam had taken that honor away from Dr. Steel, but figured that the original episode could use a good revision. Seven went on to explain that that episode presented on TV was just for laughs, and what happened here had no bearing on it. With some exceptions like Dr. Steel being kidnapped, 99 being clobbered over the head by the Claw, and "Max" pretending he had a twin brother who was a doctor, this version was what really happened. He also tried to console Al by telling him that it wasn't Sam's fault that KAOS had been so cruel to the two ladies. KAOS was just being what it had always been—rotten. It was then that Mr. Seven introduced him to Agent 100, and told them that her real name was Susan Hilton. Al questioned the number, and thought that her name sounded strangely familiar. The lady agent smiled and said that the number one hundred always followed ninety-nine. Al chuckled and the chief looked heavenward.

Agent 100 said that she understood why the chief was not overly fond of his first name. Her grandfather had an even odder name. Her maternal grandfather's first name was Tesla, named after the eccentric and misunderstood nineteenth century scientist and inventor, Nicolai Tesla. Her grandpa always thought his first name sounded too girly. She told the chief that his name wasn't that bad in comparison.

Miss Hilton certainly didn't look much like an agent, but Seven said that was the beauty of this, her first assignment. Nobody would ever suspect her of being one. She had the advantage of average looks and the element of surprise. She now had on more contemporary-looking glasses, but not too contemporary, as to arouse suspicion that she was not from this era. She was wearing drab sixties gym apparel, so she would complete her masquerade as a Hercules gym patron. The chief and Al watched as Seven issued her a servo, which resembled more than anything else like a silver ballpoint pen with antennae. Al observed it had not changed in appearance at all from the show it came from. Seven went to the black desk and pushed on the pen holders that controlled the secret doors. The chief of Control asked if he could hold the servo, having never seen one before, but Seven advised against it, saying it could be dangerous in the wrong hands. The hidden safe-like transporter appeared once again. Miss Hilton was ushered in first, then the chief of Control, and then Al.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

In the Quantum Leap facility, Gushie was frantically trying to re-establish contact with Al, after losing track of him when he went through that safe-like enclosure. Max wondered what was going to happen to him if they couldn't re-connect with him. Gushie told him not to worry. He guessed that as long as Sam was alive somewhere, he would be fine. A few minutes later, to their relief, Al re-appeared and quickly told them where he had been. They were just as astounded as he. He told them that the mysterious Mr. Seven would be taking them directly to Max's apartment. Sam was running out of time for his rendezvous with Mr. Hercules, and it was crucial that they wasted none. The chief had returned to Control headquarters to check on Steel and 99. He wished Al and Agent 100 a successful mission. Agent 100 had wanted to drop off and accompany the chief to visit her new friends in the infirmary, but then considered that time was of the essence. Even though Sam had found the antidote to the slow poison that was killing Agent 86, he still wanted to make sure that that Hercules jerk got his just desserts.

Agent 100 told Al that it took her forty years to finally Google the name Lucrezia Borgia. When she was a child, the name just flew over her head, and she forgot about the series for many years. When she finally got around to buying the third season DVDs, her curiosity took over. Lucrezia Borgia was an evil slime ball tramp from the Dark Ages, who got her kicks by murdering people with poison. It was appropriate that Max had mentioned her, but she could never really figure out why there was a laugh track when her name was mentioned. Al suggested that perhaps it was nervous laughter.

When they materialized in front of Max's door, Agent 100 knocked and called out my name. Al had vanished from her sight and had reappeared behind me as I cautiously opened the door, wondering how she knew my real identity. I recognized her almost immediately as the cashier at the filling station store, and I asked her what she was doing here. Al told me to let her in. I jumped and scolded him for sneaking up on me. He apologized and introduced Agent 100 to me. Like Al, I thought she didn't look much like an agent and briefly wondered why Agent 100 was never mentioned in the series.

She told us that she was actually a dual agent, working for Gary Seven and for Control. I asked her to repeat that, not quite believing my ears. She said I heard right. Gary Seven was not only an intergalactic agent, but also worked closely with Control. His group had been in partnership with Control for several years, ever since KAOS had stolen the original blueprints for his own time travel facility. Agent 100 reminded us that he was not a time traveler himself, but actually from the sixties. Al and I had piqued his interest when we first appeared in front of the fake phone booth. He had never seen Al before, and was curious as to who we were and what we were doing there. He knew almost immediately that Maxwell Smart was somewhere else when I began to converse with Al. Agent 100 also informed us that there was another Quantum Leaper involved with Sam's leap, some woman who had jumped into Janet, the woman who poisoned Max. I told her that it was probably the "evil leaper", a woman I had dealt with before. Susan said that she had a plan to make sure that the evil leaper would not interfere with my plans to defeat Hercules. She was going to pretend to be a big fan of Don Adams, which wasn't a big acting stretch for her, and I should pretend to be the actor to throw the evil leaper off guard, so she could zap her with the servo. She said she might do it sooner if the woman made some crack about her weight. She asked me if I was a good actor. I said I had had a lot of experience in my many leaps, and that this was going to be fun.

There was another knock on the door. I looked at Max's watch. It was noon. I thought it could only be one person. Now was the time to tell Mr. Box to take a hike. I opened the door again. It wasn't Box. It was John the janitor, there to collect on his small loan that he made to Max. The chief had apparently informed Mr. Box that Max was no longer in danger of losing his life. I told him to hold on for a moment. I had to check to see if Max's shoe phone was operational again. It was. Once more, I opened Max's wallet and withdrew a crisp new five dollar bill. John the janitor thanked me and told me to have a nice day. I told him that, so far, it had been just peachy. He saw Agent 100 standing there beside me and bowed respectfully. She smiled back at him. Chivalry was certainly not dead in this era. Maybe that's why she loved the sixties so much. John hadn't seen me check the shoe phone. Apparently, with the exception of one or two people in the apartment building, nobody here knew Max's true occupation. I planned to keep it that way. I didn't want Max to lose his Control job because too many people knew what he really did for a living. I still thought that the "greeting card salesman" cover was a bit lame, but who was I to judge? It worked for him, although greeting cards and firearms were not really compatible. Al reminded me that neither were greeting cards and hand grenades.

***

We arrived at the Hercules gym about a half an hour later, courtesy of Seven's handy dandy transporter. As Agent 100 and I stepped into the reception area, we were greeted by a cheerful brunette receptionist who was dusting off some muscle man pictures on the wall.

"Oh, good afternoon. I will be with you in a moment." She put the feather duster she was using down and went to the reception desk. Al asked me if I was glad that she got the time of day right this time. In the original account, she had said "good morning". I nodded at him. Al then realized that originally, she had been dusting off the pictures with a cloth. "May I help you?"

"Yes, we are here to look around." I said, not really recalling how this scene went either.

"Are you a member?" She asked.

"No, I'm not."

"Well, sir, you are in luck. We have a membership special this week. A lifetime membership usually costs six hundred and ninety-five dollars. It's on sale this week for only five hundred dollars."

"How much for a half an hour?"

Al laughed.

"Sam, you don't have time for this." Susan reminded me softly.

"Just sign up my friend here, if she isn't a member already." I said.

"I am a member." Susan told me quickly. I had the feeling she only wanted to save Max some money.

"Then, I will buzz you in. Feel free to look around. I'm sure our gym will be to your liking."

_Sure, lady,_ I thought. _And your boss is a KAOS criminal! _She reached behind her desk and pushed a button. We stepped over to the entrance. Agent 100 went through it first. I glanced back at the attractive but clueless receptionist, and ended up bopping into a closed door. She smiled with obvious amusement as I went through the door, rubbing my sore nose, a little embarrassed. Al told me with a chuckle that Max had done the exact same thing in the original episode.

We were in an adjoining hallway with two locker rooms; one for men and the other for women. Susan went to check the women's locker room and I checked the men's. A few minutes later after I closed the door on the men's locker room, I heard a woman's voice.

"Mr. Smart?"

I turned slowly, and didn't utter Max's famous line about the health food Lucrezia Borgia. It was Janet, the woman who poisoned Max. Actually, I recalled that Susan said she was really Alia the "evil leaper" in disguise.

"Are you talking to me?" I asked, doing my best DeNeiro impression. Now was the time to put my considerable acquired acting skills to good use.

"Who else would I be talking to? Put your hands up."

"Young woman, I am an actor. My name is Don Adams. Why should I put my hands up for you and what's with the gun? Are you crazy?"

"Don't play games with me, Smart. Put them up or I will shoot." She ordered, now looking a little unsure.

It was now time for Agent 100 to act.

"Oh, my gosh! Mr. Adams, I am your biggest fan!" Susan gushed.

"You can say that again." Alia said. I thought that was nasty. Agent 100 did too, but kept her cool.

"I didn't know that Get Smart shot on location! You are the third cutest actor on television, the other two being Walter Koenig and Davy Jones! May I have your autograph? I have my own pen." She withdrew the servo from her pocket and smiled at me.

"I don't see why not." I said, returning the smile. I didn't mind coming in third on her cute-o-meter. I also knew that the two actors she mentioned were indeed good looking boys in this time period. Walter Koenig was Mr. Chekov and Davy Jones was a member of the Monkees. She must have a thing for boyish dark-haired actors, I thought.

"You have a groupie?" Alia asked. She was convinced by Susan's flawless performance as an ardent fan of Don Adams. "You're really Mr. Adams?" She asked, lowering her weapon as I nodded. "I'm terribly sorry, sir. I mistook you for someone else." She was ignoring Zoey, who said that there was something very wrong here. She said that she thought that there was something very peculiar about that pen the woman fan was holding and about the woman herself. She seemed a little out of place, and a little too old to be a fan of those two young actors. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but knew something was not quite right.

"That's easy to do. Do you have a piece of paper and something to write on?"

Alia put the gun away and dug into Janet's purse. At that moment, I mouthed _"Now!"_ to Susan. She gleefully zapped her with the servo. The woman in the pink, violet and yellow candy-striped dress sank to the floor with a vapid smile on her face.

"Not again!" Zoey shouted, watching in frustration as "Don Adams" transformed into me as I caught Alia and gently set her on the floor and propped her against the wall.

"Unpleasant dreams, skank. That's what you get for making fun of someone like me." Susan said to the now oblivious woman on the floor. She grinned at me. "I programmed this thing so she would have a whopper of a headache when she wakes up. The old Servo That Looks Like a Ballpoint Pen Trick. Works every time. Good luck with Mr. Hercules, Sam. Watch out for that medicine ball and have fun swashbuckling. I'll be out here, keeping an eye on this tramp, making sure she stays the way she is."

"I'm glad you are on my side, 100."

***

Since I hadn't seen this episode in over forty years, I didn't remember about the medicine ball that they threw at Max, missing him and hitting the scale to my left. I ended up getting the wind knocked out of me, and got slammed against the full-length mirror to my right. Agent 100 was quickly informed by Seven that I was in trouble, raced into the room, and used a wide-field stun on the men who were going to fight with me, and knelt by my prone unconscious form. She shook her head, called Seven back on her wrist communicator, and asked him how to use the servo to revive me. After receiving the necessary instructions, she woke me up moments later. I looked around at all the stunned people and asked her what happened. She scolded me gently about not heeding her warning about the medicine ball as she helped me to my feet. I asked her why the wide-field stun didn't affect me. She said that I was already out for the count. The servo was a handy thing to have in your possession, I observed. I was starting to feel like a total wimp, though, having not been able to dodge the medicine ball like Max. Susan told me not to worry; that my little secret was safe with her. I wondered why Seven had chosen to use his advanced technology to heal my injuries. Susan said that he chose to bend the time travel rules just this once. After all, Maxwell Smart was one of their favorite people too. She wished me well, and then stepped out of the room. Al followed me into Hercules' office. I didn't want to crash through the door like Max had done. There was no need for such theatrics. I was at least ten minutes early, and decided to ham it up by pretending to actually be Max. I had some pretty good ideas in mind. I now recalled that this episode had no "would you believe", so I decided to make one up.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

As I stepped into Mr. Hercules' office, he said he was surprised to see me so early and asked how I managed to get past his people in the gym. I asked him if it really mattered, and he said no. I looked at him carefully. He was a balding man, but powerfully built, unlike the actor who had portrayed him, whom I always thought was a bit pudgy around the middle. He looked more like Lex Luthor than John Fielding. He wasn't wearing glasses, either. I wondered, not for the first time in the forty-plus years after this show had aired, why he had a hand gun trained on a dying man. He said it was a force of habit and asked me to sit down. I complied, giving the complimentary cough that Max had given in the original episode. He gave me a pitiless expression and I could tell he was a real hardened criminal.

"Why did you poison me?" I asked, doing my best to feign illness.

"Just to see if I could." He responded coldly. "You have become quite a nuisance, Mr. Smart, also, quite infamous as the Control agent that is hard to kill. I just wanted to see if that was true." He studied my expression for a moment, convinced that his poison was starting to take effect. "Would you like something to drink?"

"There is an old proverb where I come from, Hercules. Drink not with thine enemy."

"Oh, come now, Mr. Smart. I wouldn't poison you further. This clear liquid will save your pitiful little life."

"Well, maybe I shouldn't be too hasty. What do you want, Hercules? I can't believe that you would give me the antidote for nothing."

"You are quite right, Mr. Smart." He threw me a pad of paper and a pen. "Write down Control's new universal codes and I will give you the antidote."

I took them and employed my high school shorthand skills, which were meager, then scribbled a bunch of mathematical nonsense on the paper and handed it back to him. He gave me the glass of clear liquid he said contained the antidote. I drank it down, at that moment recalling that it was a fake. I noticed he had the true antidote in a small brown bottle next to some papers on his desk. I didn't recall, however, what the clear liquid had done to Max in the original episode. He peered at what I wrote curiously.

"What's this?"

"It's the Dead Spy Scrawls for eat my shorts."

"I should kill you for that, but I admire a man with unmitigated gall and a strange sense of humor. I will also let you know that wasn't the true antidote."

"You're a sadistic little weasel, aren't you?"

He seemed quite amused at that, and nodded. I gazed at him, looking now as though I was unable to see him very well. "I think it's only fair to warn you, Hercules, that half the Washington police force is converging on this building."

"I find that hard to believe, Mr. Smart."

"Would you believe a quarter of the Washington police force and a newly formed SWAT team?"

"I don't think so, and what's a SWAT team?"

"You'll find out. How about the Mod Squad with cap guns?"

I thought Al was going to split a gut, but Hercules' face remained unchanged. When Al got done laughing, he told me it was a nice try, but I was at least nine months too early for that show. I bowed my head, embarrassed, looking as if I were ready to pass out from the "poison".

"Who are the Mod Squad? Are they friends of yours?"

"Not exactly. Mr. Hercules, I can't give you the information you seek. I'm not privy to it, and wouldn't give it to you even if I was."

"It's a pity I have to kill you. You aren't as stupid as my confederates say you are. How about a real last drink before your big sleep? You have three choices: carrot juice, onion juice, or cranberry juice?"

Al grinned and asked me if I was glad the man didn't say Farkleberry juice, which happened to be a reference nobody under forty would understand in the twenty-first century. I believed that it came from another comedic television show called Rowan and Martin's Laugh-in, about a hillbilly family named the Farkles.

"Very," I whispered hoarsely to Al.

"Cranberry it is." Hercules said, turning to the fridge. He took the carrot juice and the cranberry juice and placed them on his desk with fresh glasses. "I'm a carrot juice man, myself." He raised his glass to me. "I salute you, Mr. Maxwell Smart of Control."

"I'm wondering if I could have my cranberry juice on the rocks." I said, thinking of a one-finger salute I'd like to give him. I didn't do it, though. It would have been in bad taste, and why sink to his level?

"Of course. I can't refuse the request of a dying man. I may be sadistic, but I'm not uncivilized." He turned his back on me and I swiftly took the vial of knockout drops out of Max's pocket and poured it into his juice. He placed the iced cranberry juice in front of me.

"Cheers," I said grimly, watching him drink his tainted juice. "You now are about to die too."

"What?!"

"I just put the same poison in your drink, and it kills in thirty seconds!"

He made a dive for the real antidote in the small bottle on his desk. I grabbed it too, and we struggled almost like Max and Hercules from the original episode, except I was just trying to take it away from him. He sank to the floor as I grabbed the little bottle. I felt a sudden wave of dizziness and fell myself. My last thought was that there was probably something in the clear liquid to knock me out.

The next thing I was aware of was someone bending over me, patting me on the cheek and asking me if I was all right. It was the chief of Control. He helped me up after I asked him to get his knee off my chest, much to Al's and Susan's delight, the latter who arrived on the scene with the chief after having had the woman who poisoned Max arrested. I had one question. I usually set something right that once went wrong in every leap, and wondered what I fixed in this one. Susan guessed that I probably saved Control over a thousand bucks by not letting Max visit twenty-one doctors, and also saved Smart the forty-eight dollar doctor bill from Dr. Steel. I supposed she was right about that. I went to Hercules, just out of curiosity, and felt his pulse. To my shock, he was dead. I gaped at Al, and neither he nor I had any idea how he could have died from knockout drops. He guessed that Hercules was so convinced that I gave him poison, that, in his mind, that's what it was. I also considered another horrifying possibility: I had thrown the wrong vial in the ditch. It was then that I leaped out of Maxwell Smart.

***

The next thing I knew, I was in a small room, with two Chinese fellows on either side of me. I suddenly realized that I didn't feel the same discombobulation that I usually felt after a leap, but my main concern was where I was now. The guys flanking me looked a little familiar. I was standing in front of a large map of Washington, DC, and then knew I was still in the world of Maxwell Smart, but in a different person. I was wearing a yellow satin oriental-style shirt. My right hand was holding a pointer and my left hand…wasn't there. In its place was a very deadly-looking prosthesis that could only belong to one person. I wondered if KAOS paid this villain very well. Certainly, he could afford to buy different clothes.

_Oh, crap! _I thought to myself, instead of uttering my usual catch phrase. _I leaped into the Claw!_

"What is it, Master?" The chap on my left asked, seeing my puzzled and disgusted expression.

"I just lost my train of thought." I answered quickly.

"You were just showing us the location of Maxwell Smart's apartment."

It was then that Al appeared. He apologized for taking so long, and said he had trouble finding me. Someone had yanked me away and placed me here for some reason. He guessed that it was Mr. Seven, for who else would have time travel equipment more advanced than ours in this era? It had been a while since I had leaped into a criminal, real or fictional. Al realized that I was flanked by two KAOS henchmen and I couldn't converse with him yet.

"Oh, yes. We aren't through with Maxwell Smart just yet. I will dispose of him myself, since Hercules flubbed up his chance." Satisfied that I sounded villainous enough, I put the pointer down. "Excuse me, gentlemen. I have to drain the dragon." I said, trying to sound Chinese. I had no idea where the bathroom was, but anyplace was better than being in close quarters with a couple of thugs. Soon, I was in a short hallway. I was thankful when I saw a door labeled "men" and stepped inside. Music was playing somewhere in the building, and I realized that this must be the Shanghai A Go-Go discotheque. Apparently, it was still a KAOS front, obviously having been refurbished since Max had blown up the room I had just been in. Al followed me. I asked him how long it had been since I leaped out of Max, and he told me just a couple of days.

"Al, this is crazy! I realize now that I kind of enjoyed being Max, but the Claw? Why did I leap into him?" I asked, staring at the reflection in the mirror. The Claw was an Amer-Asian, just like in the series.

"Ask Seven, Sam. My guess is that you're here to buy him a new shirt. After all, from our perspective, he's been wearing the same thing for over forty years."

"I'd rather turn myself in than buy this jackass anything!"

"I was joking, Sam. Perhaps you're here to do just that."

"And how do you propose I do that, Al? We don't even know where the police station is."

"No, but you do know where Max's apartment is."

I told him that Max probably had orders to shoot me on sight, but it looked like our only option. Maybe I was here to get the Claw out of a life of crime. As I recalled, he didn't strike me as a particularly violent person in the series, even though he was certainly violent in this instance. Hurting defenseless women certainly counted as violent acts on his part. Turning him in might be the best thing to do. Al reminded me that if I didn't get out of the lavatory soon, the Claw's henchmen might become suspicious. I agreed, and went back to the small room and told the men I was going out for some fresh air and to kill Maxwell Smart. They wished me luck and I left the building, glad to get out of that nest of vipers. As I stepped out, I wondered how in the world I was going to get there. Al then pointed to a bus stop. Now that beat everything! A criminal taking public transportation would only work in this universe. In the real world, the cops would pick him up in no time. Maybe that wasn't such a bad idea. The bus pulled up soon after I got to the stop, and I asked the driver where it went. He said it was a sight-seeing bus to the State Department. It would be quite a hike to Max's apartment, but that might not be such a bad thing, either. Maybe some cop would spot me. Of course, in these last two leaps, I didn't feel I had been that lucky.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

Dr. Steel had been released from the Control infirmary and was now on sick leave. Being a dedicated Control employee, she had a lot of it accumulated. She needed some personal time, still feeling a little shell-shocked from her ordeal with KAOS. She was having trouble concentrating on her work and was having trouble sleeping. She kept having nightmares about her experience with them. She felt she needed some emotional support. She was afraid of what people might think of her if she went to see a psychiatrist, knowing the stigma attached to that, so she decided to muddle through the best she could. This experience would stay with her for a long time.

Ninety-nine was still in the Control hospital with strange new symptoms. Dr. Ferris had diagnosed her with something called retrograde amnesia. She had seemed quite all right when she first awoke from her day-long coma, but now she couldn't remember much of anything. Emma was still quite worried about her friend, but Dr. Ferris assured her that she would recover fully. It was going to take some time. He said that this sometimes happened with head injuries and told her not to worry. That was easier said than done.

She was too tired to pace but too worried to rest. She switched on her TV to bring some normalcy back to her life. It didn't help much. She heard a knock at her door and started, then tried to think rationally. If it were KAOS, they probably wouldn't knock. She was a bundle of nerves. She had put on her tap shoes, just in case any of those evil creeps paid her an unexpected and unwelcome visit. She would kick the Claw in the family jewels so hard that he wouldn't be able to walk for a week. Smiling at that thought, she went to her front door and peered through the peep hole. Much to her relief, it was Agent 86. She was glad she finally knew his name, having not had the opportunity to get more acquainted with him last year at Control's annual Christmas party. Agents and regular Control personnel didn't really associate too much with each other, which she felt was a shame. She rather liked this guy's kooky and fun personality, and 99 seemed quite smitten with him. Max was standing on her front porch and was holding a gift and a bottle of champagne. He said that he found out from his dial-a-fact gadget that it was her birthday, and he was there to celebrate it with her. _That's very sweet of him, even though I don't drink_, she thought. He also said that the chief asked him to come over to her house to see how she was doing. She thought it was very considerate of the two men to think of her, and she had forgotten all about her birthday, because of that rotten KAOS bunch. Max asked her if she was all right as she let him in, noticing that she still had the bandage on her forehead where it had made contact with the curb. It was now covering a large bruise. She admitted to him that she didn't feel very safe all alone in her house, but she felt OK. He offered to let her stay at his place for a while, and she accepted gratefully, knowing all about his booby traps for any KAOS predator. She felt that she would be safer at Max's apartment than she would be at her place. She was about to find out how safe.

Max was still a little concerned about her and about what the neighbors were going to think about him keeping company with yet another attractive brunette in his bachelor apartment. He then considered that many women had come to his door for protection from KAOS, and the land lady already knew that he was a Control agent. She was now overlooking his almost daily female visitors. Max decided to fix dinner for the two of them himself, using a simple meat loaf recipe of his mother's. Dr. Steel was beginning to feel more at ease, and was unpacking her small suitcase. He was a surprisingly good cook, a rarity for men in this day and age. It felt good to be with someone who could help her get back to normalcy. They decided to have dinner near the tan sectional. Max dragged the small table that had been at the window at the foot of the stairs to that location. She asked him if 99 would mind her staying with him for a while, and he didn't think it was a problem. He cared very much about her as well as 99. He was just trying to be helpful, and appreciated her company as much as she did his. He stepped into the kitchen for the main course as Emma gazed out of the window. At first, she was just kind of staring into space. It was then that she saw a familiar and terrifying face, the cold dark eyes seeming to glare back at her.

"_**MAX!!!"**_ She screamed in horror.

Startled, he dropped the pan of meat loaf onto the top of the stove and darted into the room, seeing her terrified expression. She simply pointed at the window, stood up and started to back away. He recognized the intruder as the Claw, threw his oven mitts on the floor, whipped his gun from its holster, went to the desk by the door to activate the invisible shield, and fired. He had had his silencer on the barrel, so as not to disturb his neighbors, by the request of his land lady. Emma screamed again, this time in pain. Hearing the bullet ricochet off something, he realized he missed his target. The intruder disappeared for a few minutes, and Max rushed to Emma's side, discovering that the bottom part of the heavy shield was on her foot. She was just about ready to pass out from the pain and from loss of blood when the Claw appeared again.

"You missed me by that much, Max!" I said quickly, lifting my left hand in the air. He only saw my claw-like appendage, not my fingers. "Please, don't fire! I'm unarmed, so to speak."

Max blinked. 'Missed me by that much' was one of his catch phrases. How could the Craw know it?

"Who are you?" He asked, his weapon still at the ready.

"It's me! Sam Beckett! I leaped into the Claw!"

"Mr. Beckett, what are you still doing here? Haven't you caused enough trouble?"

"Max, I came to turn this guy in for his attempted murder of you and 99, and for the kidnapping of that lovely lady at your feet. Please let me in so I can help her. She's going into shock!"

He was still looking at me warily, but he quickly raised the invisible barrier.

"All right, but I have you covered, Craw. One false move and I will make sure that you never commit another crime."

"Fair enough, Mr. Smart. Please believe me when I say I'm not who I appear to be. Hurry; go get your first aid supplies. I will also need a basin of clean water, some soft cloths and some hydrogen peroxide." I said, trying without much success to not look menacing. "Trust me, Max. I won't hurt her."

He paused for a couple of seconds, and then realized that her life might be in danger from her new injury. As he quickly went to get the first aid supplies, I dragged the poor semiconscious lady to the sectional and waited while Max put an old towel on the edge of the place where the couch met the partition that held the plants and the conventional phone. I elevated her foot and grabbed the blanket that I had found for 99 in my previous leap, and covered her with it, keeping her foot exposed so I could treat it. I asked him if he had any Ace bandages in the first aid kit he brought to me. He did. As a secret agent, he had all sorts of first aid supplies around his apartment. As he watched me prepare to treat her injured foot, I asked him for his help to stop the bleeding, by having him apply pressure to the area after taking off her shoe. He then was fully convinced that I was indeed who I said I was, and said he often wondered what hydrogen peroxide was for. He didn't even know that it was an antiseptic, and said he never had occasion to use it, which I thought was a bit puzzling.

"Why are you living in the Craw now, Sam?" He asked me curiously, as I continued to tend to the poor woman, who was now fully unconscious. I thought she must have thought I was the Claw, reason enough for anyone to faint. Before I could answer and correct him, the prosthesis on my left arm attached itself to the bottom of her remaining shoe.

"Oh, great! I forgot that this stupid thing was magnetic! What kind of shoes are these?"

"Tap shoes. She's a dancer, remember?" Max answered. He helped me extricate myself from her remaining footwear. "It seems that Dr. Steel is always attracting the wrong kind of man. I guess they don't call her Dr. Steel for nothing."

Both Al and I laughed. It didn't take long to treat her injury after that, thanks to Max. It was a pretty nasty cut, but less serious than it looked. Thankfully, no major veins or arteries had been severed. Her shoe had protected her from more serious damage. I soon had her foot bandaged with help from Max, and then something strange occurred. The prosthesis on my left hand vanished before my eyes, as did the oriental type shirt. In their places were my white turtleneck shirt, my left hand, and the white leggings I wore when I first stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator. I saw that Dr. Steel had regained consciousness and that Max was staring at me in astonishment. Dr. Steel was the first to speak.

"Doctor Samuel Beckett, I presume." She said groggily.

"Yes, I guess I am." I answered tentatively. I looked back at Al. Steel gave him a That Girl wave and he grinned back at her, waving back. "Al, what happened?"

"I don't know, Sam. I'll go check. Hang on." He nodded respectfully at Emma and Max, even though the latter couldn't see him, and returned shortly with an astounded look on his face. "Sam, this is incredible! The Claw incapacitated two of our people, escaped from the waiting room, and vanished like a soap bubble."

"You mean he disintegrated?"

"That's exactly what I mean."

"Wow, the old fictional character who vanishes like a soap bubble trick." I joked. Max and Emma looked puzzled. "Well, it's old where I come from."

"I know this may sound like a stupid question, " Max queried, looking at the ceiling, still a little bit miffed at being called a moron, "but how is that possible?"

"That's not a stupid question at all, Max. By the way, I apologize for my comment in my previous leap. You see, the Claw was pure fiction in our reality, so when he left the confines of the Quantum Leap waiting room, he simply ceased to be. You were wise to stay put when I leaped into you. You will never see him again."

"Sam," Al said, "that explains something else I have wondered about through the years. We didn't see any more of this character after first or second season. For all we know, maybe he was meant to vanish into thin air."


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

Max commented that I looked like a demented trapeze artist. I thanked him in jest, saying that that was the look I was going for. He asked me if everyone in the future dressed like that and I told him no. Only demented scientists experimenting with time travel did. We had his meat loaf for dinner, re-heating it on top of his stove. I knew microwaves wouldn't be in common use for at least another decade. Emma said I looked more like a ballet dancer who had seen better days. I liked her description better. Doctor Steel told me about 99's puzzling new symptoms, knowing that I was a medical doctor, and asked my opinion. I knew from her description that Alia had probably leaped into her, if her leaps were anything like mine usually were, present one excepted. I asked if we could visit her in the Control hospital, so I could confirm my supposition. They both thought that that was an excellent idea. Max let me borrow one of his suits, a brown one with a red tie. He was shorter than I, so the pants were a little high water. I decided not to wear the blazer. I didn't want to look like one of the Beverly Hillbillies. I asked Max if he had any crutches so Dr. Steel could accompany us, but he didn't. She said it was all right to leave her here. She felt safer now that the Claw was no more, and had decided to catch up on some much needed sleep. Max told her to open her present, which she had set on his coffee table before I appeared as the Claw. She did so, and found that it was a compact phone with extra batteries, just like 99's. She could now contact Control if she had any problems when we were gone. Max also decided to lower the invisible wall just in case. He wished her a happy birthday, and apologized for inadvertently injuring her. She said it was just one of those things. It wasn't his fault. She had been standing in the wrong place at the right time.

We vacated the apartment building and climbed into Max's little blue convertible. I thought of asking what kind of neat little gadgets he had installed in this car, but he said that that information was classified. Even if I was just a harmless scientist from over forty years in the future, he wasn't about to divulge that kind of information. I recalled my previous leap, and asked him if they had done an autopsy on Mr. Hercules. He smiled at me mysteriously and told me that the results had been inconclusive. In other words, he either didn't know or didn't want to tell me if I had poisoned Hercules or not. I didn't want to pry, so I dropped the subject. I asked him if he wanted to know anything about the future. He wanted to know if there were really flying cars, like in the Jetsons. I told him only in the movies. However, I did tell him that there were much better ways of spying on people without their knowledge than concealing hidden microphones in fake flowers.

Zoey was very upset and was complaining loudly to Thames her assistant and anyone else who was in earshot that Alia had been pulled away from them. They had no idea where she was now. Apparently, someone else had time travel technology, but whom? They had Lothos the computer do some research on who could have Quantum Leap know-how in this rather quaint era, and, to their surprise, they found out that their group was once a part of KAOS, and that someone had stolen blueprints on a facility like theirs. It had taken them almost thirty years to decipher the complicated information and construct their own evil leaper facility. They still didn't know who they had stolen the original blueprints from. That information had vanished in the mists of time, luckily for a certain intergalactic agent.

When we arrived at Control, we saw that Agent 100 was visiting Alia as 99. She appeared to be waiting for us. She said that she was informed by her superior that I was myself again. I took her aside and asked her very softy if that was really 99 in the bed or Alia , and she whispered back that it was indeed the so-called "evil leaper". I knew that Alia wasn't a bad person. She had just been in a bad situation for over two decades. Susan also whispered to me that the KAOS/evil leaper facility had no idea that she was here. I said I was glad of that. She asked me out loud if I would like to help her with her second assignment as a Seven/Control agent, which was to rescue Alia from the clutches of KAOS at last. She said that Alia was one of many unfortunates that KAOS had kidnapped throughout the years, forced to do their evil bidding. I told her that was easy. Since Seven had more sophisticated QL equipment, he could have Alia leap back into Janet, the woman who poisoned Max, who was now in jail for attempted murder, and place her in my QL waiting room. Max asked me why it should be mine. He might not understand my answer completely, but I decided not to insult his intelligence again. I told them that if she was placed in the Control waiting room, she would likely escape and then a KAOS criminal would be free to do more mischief. Same thing if she was placed in the KAOS/evil leaper waiting room. They would also find out where Alia was that way, for the woman who poisoned Max would probably tell them where to look. If she was placed in mine and tried to escape, she would disintegrate just like the Claw, since she also wasn't a real person in my reality. Agent 100 and Mr. Seven thought that my suggestion was a great idea, and it occurred just as I predicted. 99 was returned to the Control infirmary, much to Max's delight. He went to her bedside and kissed her gently on her forehead. She opened her eyes and smiled at him, knowing it was really him when he turned to introduce me. She was glad that I was a real person and thanked me for saving Max's life. I told her I was glad to do it, knowing now the appeal these characters had for millions in my reality. Alia was set free when she was discovered in Janet's jail cell. She would have to stay in the sixties for a while, but that was a small price to pay to be free of KAOS. As for me, I still felt as though I was partly responsible for 99's head injury and Miss Steel being kidnapped. I stayed in the sixties for a time as well, deciding to build a little present for 99 in a broom closet behind Max's steps in his apartment, with help from Mr. Seven.

Al found himself doubting that Agent 100's real name was Susan Hilton. She didn't look like a Susan. Also, he had done some further research and found that the name she was using was the one 99 had used when she was unknowingly engaged to a KAOS agent named Victor Royal in another third season episode. He had me take her aside and speak to her privately so Max wouldn't eavesdrop. I asked her to come clean, and she told me that 99 had probably borrowed her name for that particular episode, and that Susan Hilton was indeed her real name. Al didn't buy it. He knew that she had purchased the DVDs and could have just chosen that name for herself. She was starting to get a little bit exasperated and asked us if it really mattered what her real name was. I told her that Max might remember the name when that episode came about. She reminded us that in the original series, Max wasn't that great at recalling names, and would probably forget hers after a while. We decided then that she had a point and dropped the subject, letting her have her fun, whoever she really was.

***

How Susan Hilton Became a Control Agent:

It was the latter part of the first decade of the twenty-first century. Susan's house had just burned down, and she needed a new place to stay. She was currently staying at a friend's house. In the want ads of the morning paper, she found that there was a very reasonable apartment for rent, six blocks from the State Department. Her friend had warned her that the land lady was a bit eccentric, to put it delicately. Just because her last name happened to be Smart, she thought that she was a retired Control agent. Every time someone wanted to rent apartment 86, she would flat out ask them if they would like to become one. Of course, nobody took her up on the offer, and the apartment had been vacant for a very long time. They all thought she had a screw loose. There were a few who had humored her, and they found themselves locked in a broom closet. It didn't take them long to come to the conclusion that she was in need of professional help. Susan needed a place to stay, and she didn't care if the old lady hung from a chandelier. She decided to see for herself if the land lady was really in need of a padded cell.

She approached the old brown stone building, and an elderly lady was there to meet her. It was the land lady, Mrs. Smart. The apartment was spacious and very well maintained, and the rent was so low that Susan didn't care how nuts the old lady was. It was a very nice place. The old widow didn't look like she belonged in a straight jacket. She was very soft-spoken and kind as she showed her around. Maybe she was just trying to be funny about the Control thing.

After they toured the apartment, the time had come for Mrs. Smart to ask her the big question. She said she knew what people thought of her, and knew that the old series had worked to conceal the real Control too well. She hesitated asking the question, until Susan prompted her.

"My dear, I have a question I have to ask you. Please don't think I'm Looney tunes. This offer is genuine, and it's the only way I would let anyone rent this apartment. My late husband and I spent many happy years here in the employ of Control."

"Go on, Mrs. Smart."

"Would you like to become a Control agent?"

"Mrs. Smart, I would like to keep an open mind about this. After all, it's been said that a mind is like a parachute. It functions best when open. If there really is a Control organization, I would like to become an agent. I have loved Get Smart ever since I was a little girl, and it still brings me joy to watch it on my DVD collection. The answer is yes."

The old lady smiled warily.

"You aren't just humoring me, are you?"

"No, ma'am. I'm not. How do I join?"

"Do you remember the third season, and the episode The Little Black Book?"

Susan grinned.

"Don't tell me it's that easy."

"It's that easy." The old lady smiled back with a twinkle in her eye, expecting the old comeback line from her.

"I asked you not to tell me that." Susan said with a chuckle. "All kidding aside, Mrs. Smart," she added, her smile not fading. "How do I join Control?"

"Rub your belly and tap your head at the same time. When you do that, then I would like you to raise your right foot and I will whisper the secret oath to you so you can repeat it."

Susan did as she was instructed, and then Mrs. Smart led her to the infamous broom closet.

"Now, don't be afraid, honey. This isn't really a broom closet. It's a time portal. A couple of men I once knew that you will eventually meet built it for me after one of them impersonated Max and found the antidote to some slow poison that some woman had given him. Now, it's usually at this point when people start getting nervous, or they run out of here like I'm an axe murderer or something. Please give the portal time to work. It's very hard to find people for Control these days. I will let you out if you get scared, OK?"

"OK, Mrs. Smart. But, will I still get to rent the apartment?"

"We'll just wait and see. You know, people will think you're crazy if you tell them that you accepted the offer to become a Control agent. You will have to keep it a secret, or the men in black will have to flashy thing you. You will receive training when you arrive in the past."

Susan laughed and stepped inside the closet. Soon, she heard an odd humming noise, and then an eerie blue fog surrounded her. The room was starting to glow. She looked up to see the source of the light, and saw that the moldings near the ceiling were glowing with a bright blue color. After a few minutes, the broom closet returned to normal. The door opened soon after that and she found out the old lady wasn't crazy after all.

THE END


End file.
